Otherwise
by grayorca
Summary: AU. "It wasn't every day you fell INTO a storm drain, was it?" (On hold until ITerations is concluded.)
1. Droplets

**One-Time Disclaimer:** _IT_ © Stephen King.

 **Notes:** The first part of my _very_ tentative multi-chapter take on a 2017 AU! _IT_. How is it different? Read on and see.

* * *

 _"Droplets of 'yes' and 'no' in an ocean of 'maybe'..."_

 _Faith No More - The Real Thing, "Falling To Pieces"_

* * *

A year later, then-seven-year-old George Denbrough would probably look back on that afternoon with a funny combination of sorrow, distress, and glee. The reasons for each respective emotion would be too numerous to name, but in short, the antics that unfolded between the months of October 1988 and August 1989 were memorable.

If he asked his older brother, Bill wouldn't disagree. Not exactly. But his recollections would be an altogether different scrapbook compared to Georgie's.

Then again, weren't everyone's memories inherently varied anyway? You could no more borrow another person's identity, to see through their eyes, than you could keep the sun from setting.

Realistically, their first meeting was as far from the "best of circumstances" as one could get. Perhaps it had worked in Georgie's favor that afternoon. Both parties were matched in how unexpectedly they had come to run into one another. Taken aback, they parted on bewildered terms. Blind stupidity, misplaced compassion, or base curiousity could be blamed (or thanked, if one begged to differ) for what came later.

When they found each other again.

* * *

It wasn't every day you fell _into_ a storm drain, was it?

Georgie certainly hadn't meant to. Only a single, terrible second after it happened did he realize how foolish it was to lunge after the falling paper boat as if it were home plate - a home plate the catcher had unexpectedly yanked aside.

But at the time, it was the only option to spring to mind. Tearing around the street corner like it was third base, scantly avoiding running head-on into the orange Derry Works sawhorses standing guard against the curb, Georgie was only just regaining his forward momentum when he spied his wayward vessel's destination.

It - _'she', Georgie, you call boats 'she'_ \- had fetched up against a small pile of coagulated leaf litter before the force of the running gutter water caused her stern to swing around. From there, nothing stood in the way of her plunge into utter darkness.

Boots kicking up splashes in his wake, her pursuer closed the gap.

"No!"

In his mind's eye, Georgie could almost picture himself, diving forward, arm outstretched, fingers spread wide. By some small miracle the top of his head did not collide squarely with the drain's upper lip and render him unconscious. He felt only a glancing scrape through the protection of his yellow hood, sparing him an ugly drag across the concrete. There was still a dull explosion of pain, but more frightening was the utter _disappearance_ of light around him.

Like an overeager bloodhound who had chased a fox back to its den, the boy had wedged himself in after his prey. He had become stuck to an irreversible point, past his shoulder blades, new pressure pinching him in an uncomfortable place between chest and stomach. The radio in his pocket, once a device meant to comfort him with the knowledge help was only a quick call away, was crammed into his gut.

He was half-dangling into the filthy void beneath the street.

"No! No, no, _no_!"

The boat forgotten, he backpedalled frantically - or tried his best to, hands flailing, seeking purchase. Sheer panic seized him squarely in her unforgiving grip, and he tried in vain to twist aside, to get out, to free himself from the overwhelming torrent of cold water cascading over his back and legs, soaking him to the bone.

In only a few struggling moments (that, in truth felt more like an hour's work) he managed to loosen himself.

Only to fall forward.

"Agh!"

To be a mite fair, the drop wasn't that far. It was like tumbling off a bed. And the landing was soft enough, but it was the possibility of _what_ he had landed in that repelled Georgie.

Said horror was compounded by the fact he landed in it facefirst.

He laid there only long enough to register an awful, mushy substance against his face and a dank, earthy texture invading his mouth, eyes, and nose before blind reflexes saved him again.

Lurching out of the falling water's path, he wriggled aside until his shoulder hit a wall, pawing blindly at his face, spitting franctically. Gradually, he cleared enough of the slime to breathe. The gritty taste of mud and rotting leaves was thick on his tongue, the most awful thing he could remember tasting in his short lifetime.

Dimly, he felt a trickling under his nose and down the back of his throat. Enduring such abuse so quickly had caused him a nosebleed, the perfect rotten cherry to adorn the sundae of failure fate had suddenly forcefed him.

All because Georgie didn't want his brother to be mad.

With that realization came the tears, and he sat down roughly as the strength left his legs. Doing the boy some good, the tears helped to clear the sewer gunk from his eyes. He brushed the worst away with the cuff of his sleeve, dabbing the bloody snot from his nose, shivering at the soaked-through cotton sweater clinging to his body.

His sobbing abated gradually, as did the bleeding.

Craning his aching head up, he spied the drain's opening and the street it looked out onto, a vantage point to which he had never imagined being on this side of.

Until now.

His crying hitched to a grating stop, as nothing answered it besides the torrent of falling rain. It spilled into the drain, a neverending waterfall. Georgie braced his trembling hands against the wall behind him, noting with dismay that - even on tiptoe - the saturated edge was virtually unscaleable for him.

Only if he were two feet taller would it be somewhat possible (then again, at that height and corresponding _size_ , he would never have slid into this deathtrap in the first place).

There was no way for him to jump high enough to clear the three foot drop from the gutter below.

How was he gonna get out of here?

"Help! Somebody, please! Anyone! _Help_!"

A slim chance was better than no chance at all.

Gradually, he lost the strength to shout, growing more winded and tired with every attempt. In a matter of seconds, minutes, an hour, he didn't know.

What did it matter? Who was going to hear him in this downpour?

Fumbling, he tried the radio in his pocket, wincing at the bruise it had surely left against his skin. Static crackled incomprehensibly from the speaker when he pushed the button, but each plea for help was met with the same useless white noise.

Panic started to well up within him once more. His eyes stung suddenly, growing moist again with stress and fright. He huddled back against the wall, rain slicker catching and sliding roughly against the concrete, and he sank down into a sitting position, arms wrapped around bent knees. Fresh tears slid down his cheeks, carving new trails through the filth marring his skin.

Out of the immediate range of the falling water, he waited a spell and mustered enough strength to stand again. He cried himself hoarse, screaming desperately against the elements of wind and rain, hoping against hope someone up above caught onto the sound.

 _No, no, no. Please, let me get outta here. It'll be dark soon._

 _...No! Someone has to have noticed I was gone this long. Billy, where are you?_

Despite the mounting frustration and fright, he tried to breathe easy, to think through the problem, head spinning. What little light there was to see by here didn't offer him any reassurance.

Was it worth venturing into the darkness to either side? Who was to stay he wouldn't run into a dead end?

What if he ended up falling again, into another gutter, one from which there was no escape whatsoever?

"Even if I didn't, Bill's gonna kill me," Georgie moped aloud to nobody, wiping at his nose again. He felt like the definition of miserable. "I lost the boat."

He belatedly thought to consider where she had gone, and glanced around. A few minutes of feeling blindly about the cramped, dark space yielded no results. His dirty fingers passed over clumps of mud, spiky pieces of tattered leaves, and stringy wet sticks. No waxed paper was to be found among them. No doubt the running water had swept her away to places unknown.

Despite himself, the waterlogged boy gave a little shaky chuckle, still on his hands and knees.

"At least she was fast."

"...Ss-ss-sss..."

The noise, which he dismissed as imaginary at first, did not alarm him. It was a byproduct of the weather, a trick of the wind whistling pitilessly overhead. Surely the sewers were full of inexplicable sounds that echoed and bounced about until they became unrecognizable.

"Ss... Sh-sss-ssHE?"

Only when it returned, an decibal louder and explosively right next to his _ear_ , did Georgie give a startled cry and try to scramble away.

Away to where turned out to be the few inches left to reach Nowhere, Maine, as he wedged himself into an unseen corner beneath the street. He paid it no mind, too transfixed by the unexpected sight before him to consider anything else.

What he saw was a shadowed, gangly, man-shaped figure, stooped in a half-crouch in the space above him. Its face was indistinguishable, save for the pair of eyes - impossibly bright, dark blue toward the center, with yellowing edges that practically _glowed_ \- staring down at him.

Freezing water continued to pour in from the drain above, pattering loudly against the stranger's form, but the eyes never blinked, never strayed from their target.

He thought he saw the pupils change shape. In the span of a second, they widened from narrow slits to rounded ovals and back, like a cat's.

In his hysterical state, he couldn't tell if it was real or a trick of the light.

Georgie blinked rapidly, mind reeling. His hands clenched around the useless walkie-talkie in a deathgrip. He held his breath, senses numb.

How? _How_ was it possible there was anyone else suddenly down here with him?

There was no other way down here... was there?

"W-what? W-w-who are you?"

The figure leaned closer, one spindly arm playing out to balance itself against the wall. The hand settled on the wall beside his head, poised on its fingertips. Trying to see past his delirious disbelief, Georgie thought he heard the slight jingle of bells. As his eyes adjusted further, picking out more details, a clearer picture in his mind began to form.

With a gasp he saw the figure draw even closer, and another hand - again, very _human-_ shaped - was reaching directly toward him, white as bleached bone.

"No, stay away!"

Undaunted, the hand rotated at the wrist, long fingers unfurling from a wide palm. The tips brushed against his quivering chin, hesitant and soft.

Georgie froze anew, half-reaching up to smack the invasive hand away.

"D-don't hurt me! Please, I'm lost, I fell, I-I d-didn't- "

The hand's index finger suddenly reared up, the tip settling easily against his chapped lips.

Obediently, astonished by the bizarre gesture, the boy shushed.

The pallid stranger's eyes narrowed quizzically. Below them, a row of sharp fangs stretched into an obscene grin, as ice-white and mocking as any Cheshire cat's.

All the better to match those slit-pupilled eyes.

"Y-you feLl?"

Lightheaded, about to be overcome by terror or sheer overwhelming fatigue, Georgie faintly heard himself admit, "Y... yes, I-I did."

"ReaLly?" The figure gave a solitary wheezing laugh, eyes gleaming. "Hah! Now hOw did you manage tHat?"

Georgie felt a prickle of anger kindling in his chest. Usefully, it chased the swirling dots out of his eyes. There was nothing remotely funny about his tumble into the drain. He was at this erstwhile stranger's mercy, yes, but that didn't mean he had to sit there and take even _more_ abuse.

He scowled.

Slowly, the eyes lost their amused gleam. The fingers holding Georgie's chin pulled away. With a sudden flicking motion of the wrist, a ruffled cloth appeared in the same hand. Georgie tried not to gape when it was brought against his cheek, rough as a wet washcloth, wiping the dirt and blood from his face with gentle strokes.

While instinct screamed at him to run, and his rational brain coldly declared there was simply nowhere to go, Georgie did the only thing he could do.

He held still.

Face scrunched up, it was oddly comforting to be this little bit cared for.

"I only mEant, it isn't everydAy a visitor simply drops iN to say 'hello'."

Breathing deep, the boy tried to explain, to keep his nerves steady. If only his heart would stop hammering so wildly.

"My boat, s-she... was washed down here. I thought I could save her. I tried, I..." The stroking paused. He swallowed thickly, hugging himself, eyes upturned and beseeching. "Mister, please, I need help. I-I just want to get back home. Do you know a way out?"

The stroking resumed, on the opposite cheek. The yellow eyes drifted away, their owner lost in new thought. One pupil finally swung back to regard the boy. "Hmm, maybE. But it means going baCk the way you came."

"What?" Georgie shot an uneasy look at the drain's bubbling edge. "Why? How did _you_ get down here? Can't we go that way?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"BecauSe."

"Because, why?"

"It doesn't woRk like that."

Ire swirled up to consume Georgie again. He clambered to his feet, emboldened, determined to close the gap and get an answer to his liking.

And to get a better _look_.

"Why doesn't - Like - You... you're, y-you're a clown?"

Here, there was enough light to see by.

The being's face - as human as the hands - was painted white, save for the red, exaggerated lips, and the trails that curved upward from the corners of the mouth, across the cheeks, spearing through those yellow eyes. His nose was adorned with the same shade of red.

Staring down at him, the being's mouth split to reveal another terrible grin.

"Kiddo, seEing where you aRE, it doeSn't matTer what I am rigHt now, don't'cha thiNk?"

 _"Right now"?_

A whole host of strange thoughts crossed Georgie's mind at that moment.

"I... I..."

"You wanT to go hoMe?"

"Y-yes, but..."

"CoMe herE, then."

Again, a hand reached toward him.

But this time, it did not touch him. The stranger let it hang there in midair, palm up, waiting.

Georgie took another precious moment to study his would-be savior. The clown's suit was the complete opposite of what one expected a clown to look like. The collar and the ruffles were there, with decorative frills for each limb. It was a dull silver, drab and colorless, save for the line of three red pompoms down the center. Rather than sport a frizzy, out-of-control wig, this one bore upswept tufts of orange hair, a mane of flames sitting atop his oversized skull.

Somehow, the overall appearance fit their colorless surroundings even better. And where there was color, it seemed even more vivid.

There was a mark on the suit.

Looking closer, Georgie saw the washcloth that cleaned his face hadn't been a seperate cloth at all.

It was the same forearm cuff-frill, bearing a bloodstain, dangling from behind the glove now held toward him.

Nervously, Georgie swallowed.

He thought to step forward, but his feet wouldn't move. His arms remained locked and tense at his sides.

It was as though while his brain said, "yes, take his hand; it's the only way outta here", his body's best plan was to refuse.

The stranger's painted face frowned, almost as if they sensed the same conflicting message. Thought twice of their performance.

Perhaps he hadn't _meant_ to sound so brusque?

Slowly, the hand dropped out of sight, into the shadows. He took a half step back, and then stooped even further down.

Backlit against the drain's meager light, he seemed like a virtual giant.

"What'S your namE?"

Ah.

That was what had been missing. An exchange of names.

It was rude not to introduce yourself. Even if, in his panic, the boy _had_ asked first, after overcoming the initial jitters, now was a better time to ask. And to answer.

And Georgie was nothing if not polite.

"G-Georgie. George Denbrough."

The clown seemed to ponder this at great length, pupils slowly sliding _apart_ from each other, just like a chameleon's, before recentering.

"NiCe to mEet you, Georgie. I'm PennywiSe the DanCing Clown."

And just to complete the moment, he stooped low in a textbook bow.

 _Charmed, I'm sure._

Which Georgie instantly was. The title was so equal parts delicate and somewhat playful and just totally-not-meant-to-be-in-a-place-like-this. Compared to the dark dangers of the sewer and the fear that he had endured, it sounded more than appealing.

Someone had answered his cries for help.

Even if it was the last thing in the world he thought that would.

He couldn't help a shy smile.

Pennywise grinned down at him again.

Those weren't fangs. Just oversized teeth.

One of the big gloved hands came down on the six-year-old's shoulder.

That time, Georgie didn't balk.

"NoW, let'S get you outTa here."

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** *rereads what she put Georgie through* ...Jeez, I'm awful. And on top of all that, I leave it with a cliffhanger. Bad writer, bad...

Anyone else notice how that storm drain just _happened_ to be big enough for a small child to be pulled in? Never mind Pennywise. Would kids just _have_ to avoid such a gaping death trap on a daily basis?

Yes. This is inspired by the likes of "Commit To The Bit", "An Emotion Bent Out of Shape", "Turned Good (Tumblr comic) / You Can Keep Her" and a host of other oneshots involving divergent takes on our favorite shapeshifting monster. Check them out if you want more of the same AU!

Seems pretty standard, this intro? Part two is where things really start to diverge. Follow or fav if you'd like to see it!


	2. Impersonate

**Notes:** And here is where we really begin to veer _way_ off what's been done before. Enjoy!

* * *

 _"Impersonate myself for what I used to be..."_

 _Spineshank - The Height Of Callousness, "New Disease"_

* * *

 _. . . . ._

 _. . ._

 _..._

 _Hunger._

 _There. The first thought._

 _That was the first thing to come back._

 _Every time._

 _Hunger. An overwhelming_ need _for food._

 _Desire._

 _The next feeling. Always second._

 _But what kind of food?_

 _First question. Always._

 _It was a strange thing, the sensation of waking up. Gathering. Weaving. Collecting oneself. Attaining._

 _Piecing your very essence back together. Later, all it could be described as was like picking up the pieces of one's own mind._

 _Like kernels. Little nuggets of information. Kernels of knowing._

 _As yet, uncracked. Unpopped._

 _Kernels? ...Popcorn? Why was that important?_

 _Wait._

 _Something was wrong. Something was... off._

 _Gaps._

 _Why did it feel like some were... absent? Misplaced? Gone missing?_

 _With no hope of getting them back?_

 _How?_

 _No._

 _There, up above!_

 _Yesss. Those would do nicely._

 _Ow, ow, ow._

 _Stupid move._

 _Gravity was a factor. Yes, it was._

 _Try it again. Try! Can't get anywhere if you don't try._

 _Jump!_

 _Ha! There we are._

 _...Gone? Already?_

 _More, more!_

 _That isn't enough!_

 _Never._

 _Darkness._

 _Smelly, smelly, wet darkness._

 _There used to be light here._

 _Didn't there?_

 _He used to think so._

 _...He._

 _He hee heee!_

It was at least a week before It regained control of its senses. Or what could be 'described' as its senses. Down there where no one would see, what did it matter, what these powers of perception were? What they were known as?

During that time, that vulnerable period right after hibernation ended, It was less-than-cohesive.

Swirling. Dizzy. Out of alignment.

Vulnerable.

Energy had to be attained. Strands of thought had to be spun together again.

Memories were...

Memories.

That was the scary part.

Not the memories themselves, no.

But where?

 _Where_ had they _gone_?

It was like learning to live all over again. Or, forget _like_. That was exactly what It did. That was the cycle. The point of everything.

It learned to live, the only way It knew how. It learned every time it awoke. It learned what had changed, what had stayed the same.

It learned about Itself all over again.

Every time.

...Except... this time.

Scary.

Very, very scary.

Petrifying, almost.

No, don't let yourself go there.

Clues. There had to be clues.

This universe was not dissolving so fast he was without clues. No.

This space, the tower, the wagon at its base - he remembered all of that.

Where it had come from. When he had procured it.

The name on the side of said wagon.

Eureka!

That was It. Its favorite form.

Take that, take that look.

It was a start.

Scraps. That was what he was existing on. Leftovers. His last hibernation.

And the one before that. The one before that.

On and on and on.

How far back?

Forever ago?

Had it been that long? Was that... him? All he was?

Ever?

Ever going to be?

Oh, no. Hungry again.

Leftovers...?

 _Forget_ that. Time for the fresh stuff!

Ow...

That could have went better.

Dummy.

Stop. Think.

Consider.

What was it about this planet? _Something_ about it had to appeal to him. Why else would he have slumbered here since before time?

Before it was even a _concept_.

Dejected thinking didn't begin to say it.

His favorite, yes. But playing favorites didn't always get you fed.

Why? Wasn't he supposed to be better at this?

Missing kernels.

Just enough of them. Bricks plucked out of his foundation, leaving the rest of him shaky and unstable.

Anger. Coals in a firepit, smoldering, just _waiting_ to be fed oxygen.

That's _it_. Time to _act_.

Moping wasn't getting him anywhere.

Knowledge. Certainty.

Memories.

Precious, precious memories.

Let's see about getting them _back_.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** *sits there crosseyed* Yeah... I don't think I'll do another one of these POV things for a while.

At least, not until after the second chapter.


	3. Messed

**Notes:** Now, here's the thing. I know there are a whole slew of AU stories in which Georgie lives, where he returns home to an otherwise-indifferent family. I'm sure I have read them. I know I'm not the first person to write such a scenario. Whatever resemblence this bears to anyone else's work, I can only say it is entirely coincidental. And from this point onward, I intend for "Otherwise" to follow the plot _I_ have in mind. No one else's.

So, to anyone thinking to cry "plagarism" - spare me. I've thought this through.

It's fanfiction. It's all supposed to be for fun anyway. It's not like we're making any monies.

* * *

 _"It's so messed up, to be yourself when you're never, never enough..."_

 _Pop Evil - Onyx, "Flawed"_

* * *

 _"George Elmer Denbrough! There you are! Where on Earth have you been? You're drenched! You're a_ mess _! Run upstairs, I'll draw you a bath. What happened? You poor thing. Don't you ever scare us like that again! We love you so!"_

Those were among the words Georgie would have _liked_ to have heard.

He was soaking wet. He was half-covered in caked-up muck and dried blood. He had lost the boat he and Bill had worked on together. He had bumped his head.

He almost _died_.

No.

Instead, he opened the front door, wandered back in (momentarily rejoicing to have returned to the home he thought he would never see again), and wondered why he had expected anything different than when he had left two hours prior.

He came home to silence.

Mom hardly glanced up from the piano.

He stood there a moment, boots muddy, dripping on the carpet, trapped in an awful moment of cold, sheer disbelief. He scarcely dared to blink, yet he miss a change in her attention, her expression. Maybe if he waited a few minutes, she would look up and take notice.

Five minutes later, he was still waiting.

Soft piano notes continued to fill the air. They were surprisingly... emotionless. Where once he was almost comforted by them, it just sounded like they came from an impartial place now, like a television or a radio. Now, they were so terribly droll. They were like a running lawnmower, or a car driving by.

Background noise.

Like that's all _he_ was.

Head hanging low, Georgie plodded his way toward the stairs. He didn't even care enough to take his scuffed boots off at the door.

Then, hearing the creak of a bed, realizing Bill was still there, waiting, he lept up the stairway, two at a time. That simple sound had instantly rekindled his hope for a warm "welcome back".

His brother would be happy to see him, at least.

Parenting.

What a joke.

The actually-funny part of it all was that the person to show the most concern for him that day was someone he had just _met_.

Misguided concern, as it turned out. But concern nonetheless.

* * *

He faced a waterfall.

But it was okay.

They had talked. They had a plan.

"Up you gEt."

Reaching up, Georgie felt a set of hands grab him from both sides, just above his hips, and _lift_. He inhaled deep, then held his breath. Closing his eyes against the rush of cold water that came surging back into his face, over his arms, he felt blindly for the drain's edge. Finding it, he pushed his hands past it, ignoring the rapid, shuddering channel of water washing through his slicker's sleeves, soaking him all over again.

His wrists followed, then his elbows.

He forgot to duck.

"Ow!"

The hands holding him tightened briefly.

"Oh! SorRy."

He spluttered. Swimming upriver robbed him of any chance to speak back.

He kept struggling, worming his way forward. Ignoring the new pain in his head, Georgie turned his face sideways, tried to shuffle forward. Now the water flowed past his nose, not into it. Pawing blindly, his numb fingers gripped at the flooded asphalt ahead of him, sliding uselessly at first. Finally, the tips managed to get a grip on the tough, grainy surface.

Then, with a strong push from behind, the rest of him followed.

Up and out. Back onto the street.

"TheRe you go. SucCess!"

Hallelujah!

Despite how tremendously sore and cold his body was, Georgie laughed, hitchingly at first, then steadier and steadier. No more despairing. Celebration was in order! He rolled over on his back, arms splayed out to his sides. He kicked his legs, hugged himself, rocked back and forth, feeling more than ecstatic.

Droplets pelted his face. He kept on cackling. So what if the rain got to him there? If it got anywhere?

After today, he was convinced - somehow - he would never see another day dry again.

What did it matter? He would be alive to enjoy every blasted second of it.

Eventually, the voice emanating from under the road - almost forgotten in his state of newfound glee - got his attention.

"Okay, okaY. YeS. You'rE free. Hey! Did yoU fOrget sometHing?"

 _Manners, Georgie. Where are your_ manners _? Not even a "thank you"?_

How uncouth of him to forget.

Breathing heavily, gradually regaining his threadbare composure, Georgie sat up. Half-heartedly, he brushed the lingering mess off the front of his yellow slicker. He wiped rain from his eyes, picking sticky, stray hairs out of his vision, then turned to face the drain he had just emerged from.

His heart sunk at what he saw there.

Framed in an oval of gray, Pennywise's eager, expressive eyes and red nose peered back at him. He held something in his hand.

Squinting, Georgie looked closer.

It wasn't the _S.S. Georgie_.

It was the boy's radio.

There was a pause. Taking in the dawning look of disappointment that crossed Georgie's face, the clown made a pointed glance at the device in his hand. He raised a brow. "ThiS isn't it?"

"W... what do you mean?"

"Your boAt," Pennywise clarified, blue eyes looking up (when had they gone from mostly-yellow to mostly-blue?). He sounded genuinely puzzled. "This iSn't it- I mEan, her?"

Georgie blinked, lips parting.

 _Are you kidding? He doesn't know the difference between a_ radio _and a_ boat _?_

Maybe it was part of the clown's act. They played themselves up as stupid sometimes.

But... _this_ stupid?

"That's mine, but it's not my b-boat," Georgie explained, just managing to steady his trembling chin. He folded his arms around himself with a _squelch_. Goodness, it was actually freezing out here. Somehow, under the street in the dank, disgusting void had felt _warmer_. "You can keep it. It's useless if it gets wet."

"Ohh." Pennywise's expression stilled, almost too unnaturally long for a considering pause, before he seemingly blinked his way back to awareness. The radio disappeared back into the dark. It was destined for the garbage even if Georgie brought it home, anyway. "WeLl, you're ouT. You should huRry back noW, before it gEts any darKer."

The boy frowned.

Well, that was brief. How long since he had escaped? Two minutes, tops?

And his savior already sounded like he was ready to say goodbye as quickly as he had said hello.

Realizing this, Georgie scrambled up, tripping over his own feet. On his hands and knees, he crawled back up to the drain.

He was worried he might not get another chance to ask.

"Wait!"

To his elation, Pennywise did.

Eyes wide, peering out over the lip of the drain, he seemed to freeze again.

Not pause. Not linger uncertainly. Not stop himself after taking half a step.

 _Freeze_.

Like when you hit _pause_ on the TV remote.

"...Who are you?"

Georgie didn't need to see the rest of Pennywise's face. The clown's black-rimmed eyes held steady for a moment, then they darted back and forth. Once, twice. Again. Frantically, even. They showed a sudden doubt and confusion, like it was the _boy_ who was being odd for inquiring.

"I... t-thouGht we went oVer thaT?"

Did he should _nervous_?

"I mean, where are you _going_? What are you _doing_ down there? How'd you know I needed help? Are you _staying_?"

And that was classic Georgie Denbrough for you. Once he got going, the questions never tended to end.

Pennywise waited until the boy took a moment to breathe before saying anything.

Or he tried to. Rudely (he would later note), Georgie found his penultimate query:

"I mean, who are you, really?" he rephrased. "Clowns- _people_ don't l-live in sewers."

Pennywise seemed to think it over. _Really_ think it over. He froze again. He slowly opened his mouth as if to speak, before closing it with an audible _click_.

Then, tensing up, he stepped back.

Those eyes strayed apart once more. _Way_ too far apart. As the gaping boy watched, they brightened from midnight blue to yellow. A bright, canary yellow. The pupils thinned out to bare slits.

Now Denbrough was sure. It definately wasn't a trick of the light, making him just _think_ those pupils weren't human.

Whoever this was... there was something very not-right about them.

Then, like a shark's, the glowing eyeballs rolled up and back _into_ the clown's head. The yellow disappeared, radiant white blankness taking its place.

He grimaced, showing sharp teeth. Spit welled up and spilled from the corners of his mouth.

"Go homE, GeorgIe. You're shiverinG."

He stepped back again.

Georgie reached out, impulsively. The rain continued to pummel his back, the sidewalk, the street around him.

"Wait! I'm sorry, I forgot to say, thank - "

Even more impossible, the painted visage faded backwards into the dark.

Straight _through_ the wall Georgie knew stood behind it.

"...you."

* * *

"Georgie!"

Despite still being in the grips of his waning illness, Bill Denbrough vaulted off the unmade bed with surprising speed. He crossed the room in three strides and practically threw his arms around his younger sibling, never minding the shock of cold that bit into him as their bodies connected.

Georgie nearly stumbled under the overwhelming force of the hug, one that he belatedly returned, with clumsy, fumbling hands.

That was okay. Being so cold, his fingers were probably still numb.

"Thank God."

After a brief squeeze, Bill felt for the radio, presumably still in Georgie's pocket. He had wholly expected to have to deliver a reminder about the importance of "keeping it on at all times", or to hear an excuse about a dead battery.

Finding no match to his own walkie-talkie there, he paused, took a step back and knelt down.

"Really, I was wondering why you weren't a... ans-swering."

He stammered to a stop.

Georgie's dirty face was blank, smeared with gunk as if he had just stepped out of _Apocalypse Now_. His brown eyes were hooded, devoid of life, blanker that Bill could remember ever seeing. His yellow rain slicker bore an ugly, noticable grease-stain all down its front (some of which had transferred itself to Bill's gray PJs), from neckline to waist.

But on a second sniff, it didn't _smell_ like grease.

"Ugh." Recoiling, Bill held his nose a moment, willing the nausea away before arching an eyebrow at his silent sibling. "What h-happened?"

Georgie just looked up at him, as expressionless as before. His arms hung at his sides, limp as cooked noodles.

"Georgie." Bill repeated, firmer, taking him gently by the shoulders. "Are you okay?"

Nothing.

All right, then.

First, a change of clothes was in order.

Bill discarded the ruined slicker, then found a plastic bag to stow Georgie's wet outfit. Wash that later. Leading him to the bathroom, he wetted a washcloth to better clean his brother's face. He made a cursory attempt at combing out his messy wet hair before thinking better of it. Let the kid have a chance to dry off.

In Georgie's bedroom he retrieved a fresh set of cream-colored long-johns, soft and without that itchy tag in the back of the neck. He helped the younger boy dress, ignoring the fact he had not had cause to do so for at least three years, since clever Georgie had learned for himself. He found a spare space blanket in the closest, wrapped it around the small set of shoulders.

It was another ten minutes before his little brother bothered to say anything.

"I lost it, Bill."

"Huh?"

At the end of it all, they were seated on Georgie's bed. Distracted, Bill tugged the last remainder of the sleeve past Georgie's wrist, smoothed his hair back. He was fussing a bit much, one might say, but hey, someone had to.

His brother deserved no less.

"Lost what?"

"The boat. I lost it- her. _Her_." Blinking as if the fog had just lifted from his brain, Georgie latched onto him in a sideways hug, unexpectedly. All at once, he seemed like he was back. _Really_ back.

But he was also shaking underneath the blanket. "I'm sorry. She got swept into a drain."

Arms weaving around him, Bill patted his back, smiling a nervous smile behind his head. He was simply glad to see that, whatever had transpired, it wouldn't leave Georgie a stoic, drooling mute for the rest of his days.

"T-That's okay, Georgie. We'll make another if you want. I'm j-just glad you're okay."

Georgie's grip sagged suddenly. "I went after her."

 _That_ , Bill hadn't expected. He reared back, holding his brother at arm's length, face to face. " _What_?"

Georgie was clumsy, sometimes, yes, but that? Bill had _thought_ all the damage to his clothes was the fault of an especially deep, muddy puddle.

"I went after her," Georgie repeated, eyes big and earnest. He gripped Bill's arms with his own, almost insisting. "I tried, but I slipped. I slipped into the drain."

"Y-you s-sli- you slipped _in_?" Bill stammered, disbelieving. A hundred questions assailed him at once, like hungry customers swarming at a deli counter. Who needed to take numbers to be served in sequence. "How did- you d-d-don't just _slip_ into a drain, Georgie."

His brother had more sense than that.

"I slid," Georgie corrected, looking as sheepish as he sounded. To his credit, he kept his eye contact. "I slid in, like I was going after a home run."

In a game where the difference between winning and losing was the same as life and death.

Not knowing whether to feel horrified, sick, or relieved, Bill pulled him in for another hug, fiercer this time. The blanket bunched up around them. He felt air puff against his chest. He closed his eyes tight, feeling the sting of oncoming tears, determined not to shed them.

"Jesus H, Georgie."

 _So_ that's _why he tottered in here, looking like a living skidmark._

Struggling gently, Georgie's face worked out from under the blanket's edge. "I'm sorry, Billy."

"Don't be. God. You- it's okay. You're okay. It was an accident, I'm sure."

They held each other for a while after that.

Then the next most prudent question took a number, and harped at Bill's brain, demanding his attention.

"Wait."

Brow furrowed, Bill opened his eyes, leaning back again. Georgie blinked up at him, radiating nothing but utter innocence. "H-How did you get out?"

"Someone saved me."

No. In this weather? It couldn't be that simple.

...Could it?

"Who?"

Georgie blinked again, finally glancing away. He bit his lip.

Bill frowned. Looking closer, he finally saw the scratches, little pink patches of skin rubbed raw. They ran along the edge of his brother's jaw and chin, like he _had_ scraped the concrete.

Now wasn't the time to play coy.

" _Who_ saved you, Georgie?"

"Doesn't matter. You won't believe me."

 _You don't know that._

"Georgie, it matters. You're here in front of me after falling into a gutter I _know_ you couldn't have climbed out of by yourself."

For emphasis, Bill took him by the chin. They gazed into each other's eyes, so smiliar in shape and shade.

"If you said dirt tasted like chocolate, I'd believe you."

The joke broke the tension. Georgie sniffled, then snickered, his face finally lighting up with that smile he was so good at wearing.

A part of Bill's heart quailed at the notion of never seeing it again.

"Well, if you mean that - "

Bill smirked, gently flicking a finger against his nose in warning. "Hey. Don't g-get any ideas."

"Okay." Appeased, Georgie sat back, hugging himself like the warmth had finally seeped back into him. "You're still going to think I'm making it up, but... a clown saved me."

 _. . ._

He blinked. For a fleeting second, Bill _did_ think to accuse his wayward sibling of making a fib.

And a painfully obvious, uninspired one at that.

Instead, he stuttered, wishing for the umpteenth time his mouth just _wouldn't_.

"A-a-a... a clown saved you?"

Georgie nodded. A single, confident nod.

"A clown, like, a f-f-funny guy? A comedian?"

"No, a clown. Like at the circus."

"Oookay..." Sensing he wasn't going to get anymore out of shaking that barren tree, Bill went on with the next logical question. He couldn't reason this out for himself any other way. He scratched absently at his ear, unsure. "What... did this clown look like?"

"He was... he was tall. He had the collar, the paint on his face. Orange hair. There were bells on his suit."

Struggling to recall a memory, or making it up as he went along, Georgie trailed off.

With arms folded, Bill waited. Patiently. He kept still, silent, unemotive, lest he affect the outcome of this tall-tale being spun in front of him.

"And, he had eyes... like a cat. That changed colors."

And there it was. The one fact that made the rest really fall apart.

"He was nice. He even wiped my face off." Grabbing a fistful of blanket, Georgie demonstrated, against Bill's unmoving cheek. "Like this."

Aw. What a cute addition.

"Did he... give you his name?"

Probably a stage name.

"Pennywise," Georgie chirped. "Pennywise, the Dancing Clown."

 _Definitely_ a stage name.

"Hm..."

Without waiting for an invitation, Bill swept the younger boy's bangs aside. He had noticed in the bathroom. There it was, a shallow scape just at the hairline. "You bumped your head?"

"Not that hard."

"You bumped your head, Georgie."

Growing visibly agitated, Georgie batted his hand away. He knew it wasn't a good sign when Bill repeated himself. "I did, but that doesn't change what happened. I fell in a storm drain, and a clown named Pennywise saved me."

Bill ran a hand over his face.

This was too much, too much to accept as true. Not all at once.

He shook his head and stood up.

"Billy!"

He made to leave. The bed creaked in protest as Georgie crawled after him.

Like he wouldn't get another chance to rehash the story again.

"Bill, come on. What do you want me to say?"

He paused in the doorway, flexing his hands, then placed one on the doorknob. He breathed deep, but resisted the impulse to sigh, staring straight ahead.

Five minutes ago, Bill was practically euphoric to discover his little brother was okay.

Now he would like nothing better than to get some _distance_ from him.

"What really happened would be nice."

He looked back.

Half under the blanket, Georgie bristled. A timely rumble of thunder outside cheered him on. He sat up on his knees, hands fisted. "That _is_ what really happened!"

Bill stepped out of the room.

"Get s-some sleep, Georgie. I'll tell Mom you're home."

Carefully, as if he were closing out a bad dream, he pulled the door shut behind him.

Oh, Georgie. Worrying him half to death, only to drop an anvil like that on an otherwise-perfect reunion.

Some story.


	4. Saintness

**Notes:** And... another lnterlude. I know, I said I wouldn't. But this is too intriguing an idea to just shelve. You can expect these to happen between all future chapters, too.

* * *

 _"The saintness in the sinner..."_

 _Breaking Benjamin - Dear Agony, "Into The Nothing"_

* * *

Back to the dark.

Time to think.

About the kid.

Kid.

What a clumsy, clumsy, foolish kid.

How adorable. His pleas for help, the way his very being seemed to light up when they were answered.

And how almost-alike they were.

Almost. Despite its millenia-old collection of refuse and trinkets, It wouldn't have fathomed endangering itself to save any of them. It knew when to concede.

The wagon, the rotting furniture, the rusting metal, the toys, they would all crumble to cosmic dust eventually, anyway.

Meanwhile...

This one, maybe, maybe this one would be worth seeking out again.

Not to harm, no.

At least, not at first.

Perhaps later, after a fill of helpful usefulness.

Why? It wasn't like It had anyone else to turn to.

And saving the boy's life counted for something among humans.

Put him in Its debt, so to speak.

He may have been a smidge too young to understand such things, what it meant to owe another. He knew what it was to disappoint someone close. Why else would he have chased a paper contraption almost to his death?

...Wait. The...

What did he call it?

Boat.

No... no...

No, not that.

Wait, this?

Dripping-wet radio, plastic outside, metal insides. Useless.

No.

There, maybe?

...Was that it? Still upright, defiant, run aground in a corner not two streets away.

The name on the side...

 _S.S. Georgie._

Not it. Her.

Save it. Save her.

The boy's pride and joy, apparently.

Boy.

A young one, yes.

Young things grew up.

Given the chance.

How they do so, over what period of time, did not necessarily matter. Except perhaps to themselves. You grew up fast if your surroundings warranted it.

Listening to the pipes, the air...

It seemed like, here in what-was-called Derry, Maine, there were a _lot_ of such perilious surroundings.

How apropos.

Plenty of other life forms on this planet attained 'maturity' far faster than the bipeds. Birds took only days. Felines and canines took months.

Humans took years.

Humans. The gangly apes who thought themselves better than the rest, just because they figured out how to utilize _sticks_ to fish ants out of the ground faster than any other species.

They learned, and bumbled ever onward from there, confident in their 'domination' over this world. How egotistic.

Pot, kettle, black, as they would say.

It, thinking another life form _egotistic_.

Perish the thought.

But if the shoe fits...

The flipside to that coin, such vast understanding (relative to the rest of Earth's creatures) meant humans were also capable of empathy, deduction, compassion.

They kept pets, didn't they?

Lesser species that they adored with the same intensity as with they loved one another.

Some were kinder than others.

They fed starving wanderers, swerved to avoid harming animals on their roads, placed insects back 'outside'.

...Starving wanderer.

In a way, It wasn't far off from that.

Awful, gut-twisting hunger. Blotting out all else. The constant keeping your thoughts running ahead of it.

The leftovers may as well have not even been there. It never seemed to abate.

So, so long as you kept up your act, stuck to your lines, made yourself up to _be_ someone in need of help...

The kid. Back to him.

Yes, too young to comprehend anything beyond the meager surroundings of his family domicile.

But, in part thanks to that limited world view, the curiousity it imbuded him with was strong. Inherently questioning.

It had questions.

Daunting, overwhelming questions.

But It would not stand idle and wait for the answers to find him.

No.

Turn the tables. He would find them.

The boy may not have the answers. After their chance encounter, he probably had more questions than anything else.

Perfect. Inquistiveness could be... exploited.

Used.

Yes. With just the right approach.

Meek. Helpless. Intimidated.

That was what It had to be, to pretend to be.

When It was anything but.

Time to size the shoe.


	5. Hide

**Notes:** No slow burn for this story, nope. Seen that already.

* * *

 _"You should know that the lies won't hide your faults..."_

 _Seether - Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces, "Fake It"_

* * *

Bill didn't believe him.

Well...

Go figure.

There was a reason he had waited so long, dripping wet, outside the bedroom door, before daring to reunite.

It meant telling the story of what happened.

Which Georgie did.

Once he had thought Bill was _listening_.

Oh, well.

Tomorrow's another day, right?

Georgie slept on it, waking up only a short time later, with a body that was still sore. His head and chest ached in particular. The pain wasn't gonna let him rest.

But the knowledge of simply being back home, that was a balm had eased his mind, at least.

No matter what attention his parents did or didn't pay him. He was home.

Mom and Dad were off to bed already. The lights were turned down, all throughout the house. On tiptoe, Georgie snuck down to the kitchen and stole a waiting apple off the counter. His teeth slipped against its skin, ineffective at first, but he would sooner bite into it than hazard playing with a knife.

Not without someone to help show him how to peel.

The apple tasted funny.

As a horrified afterthought, he cleaned his teeth. The only thing worse than getting a mouthful of sewer slime and blood, it turned out, was the aftertaste.

He stared into the mirror above the sink as he brushed, thinking.

He kept on pondering while he flossed, too.

Brushed again.

Of course Bill didn't believe him.

He wasn't there.

He hadn't seen what Georgie had saw, heard what he heard. It wasn't fair to expect his brother to have believed so readily.

The formerly-lost boy shuffled back to bed, stopping short of turning the light off beside him. He had spent enough time lost in the dark.

A shy three hours after his brother's return home, Fate gave the older Denbrough boy very good cause to believe.

Very good indeed.

* * *

The second time he awoke, Georgie felt much improved. He lay there blinking for a while, letting his fuzzy eyes readjust to the light. Then he stretched leisurely underneath the cotton sheets, turned over with a sigh. Next order of business, a bathroom break.

He reached toward the free side of the bed, intending to climb off.

He stopped, as did his brain and heart. For a milisecond. His eyesight went sharp and clear.

Wait.

What was that, new weight on the bed?

Between him and the wall?

There was something, _someone_ , behind him.

How?

And just when the boy thought he was imagining it...

"Hiya, Georgie."

He rolled back over.

Blue, thin-pupilled eyes stared at him from two inches away.

From a familiar red-and-white face, attached to a body that was half stuck _through_ the wall.

Just like the infamous saw-the-assistant-in-half act.

"AGH!"

His body jerked away, acting only on base instinct. Spinning over as if he were dodging a falling tree, flailing wildly, Georgie only succeeded in spooling his bedcover tightly around himself and tumbling off onto the floor.

"Umph!"

 _Thud._

The Slinky on the end table beside the bed quivered slightly at the impact.

. . .

"You don'T have to be so _dRamatic_ about it."

...

That sounded like it was said with a straight face.

But anyone watching, not knowing better, might have thought it was funny.

Georgie kicked his legs and sat up, arms awkwardly bound to his sides by the twisted blanket. It felt vaguely like wearing a straightjacket might.

What?

Why was that the first comparison to jump to mind?

Never mind.

There, lounging on the edge of his bed, was the being who had saved him from the gutter.

"You!" Georgie gaped. "What are you doing here?"

The painted face smirked at him. A lopsided smirk, from below eyes that were bright and very-much blue. Not a hint of yellow.

"'You'? Yeah, me. Me, PennywIse, remeMber?" The clown tapped at his own temple for emphasis.

"I remember, but-but how did you- Where did- When- " Georgie stammered to a halt. His brain and his mouth suddenly could just not agree on what to try and communicate first.

In his dumbfoundedness, he didn't even think to call for Bill or their parents.

Not at first.

Pennywise stared at him for a beat, still lying there, leaning on his elbows, frilly wrists crossed. The smirk melted away. Somehow, his body and legs remained out of sight, transitioning cleanly into the zoo-animal-themed-wallpaper behind him.

And if that wasn't weird enough, he looked bizarrely _okay_ with it.

He kept on staring. Georgie almost thought his visitor had pulled the 'frozen' act again before the clown blinked (a very deliberate blink, like all of them seemed to be) and tilted his head, quizzical.

Like a dog who had heard something only their ear could detect.

"Is thiS a bad time?"

 _Is there ever a_ good _time to find out a sewer-dwelling clown had Houdini'd their way into your bedroom?_

Georgie shook his head and struggled to disentangle himself. He rolled over, standing up on his knees, shuffling closer.

"No, it's fine. I just- umf, stupid _blanket_ \- didn't think I'd see you again, so soon."

"I can coMe back later."

"Wait! Please, don't."

 _You're already here. Don't run away so quick. Not again._

Georgie still had questions.

Many, many questions.

Starting with...

"How did you get in here?"

He leaned close, just to make sure he wasn't imagining, that this wasn't Maine's version of a mirage.

The clown's blue eye followed the boy's face.

Just one. Not both.

The left one.

He sounded as bemused as it made him appear. "I... jusT dId?"

Georgie drew back and frowned.

Answering a question with a questioning-sounding answer.

It was like Bill repeating himself without a hint of stutter.

Not a good sign.

Time to get comfortable. This could take a while.

"Urmph, there."

Having broken free of the blanket, the boy draped the thing over his shoulders, making an impromptu robe out of it. Stepping back, he rested against the desk drawers, sliding down into a more-agreeable sitting position.

It was always polite to let sleepover guests take the bed anyway.

Not that this 'sleepover' was proving to be entirely ordinary.

And not only because it had commenced without Georgie's permission.

"All right. Then, again, who _are_ you?"

Pennywise pulled a face. The frown was all the more exaggerated when it was outlined red against white. His left eye remained off-center. "That'S the thiRd time you've asked me."

 _So you can count._

The boy kept pressing.

" _Who_ are you?"

The clown looked away, seeming truly uneasy.

"We already introduced ourselveS, GeorgIe."

"What? Are you dumb in the head, mister? You gave me your name, but at the same time, you act like you don't know who or _what_ you are. How does that make any sense?"

"...It doesN't."

"Can't you tell me why?"

Sharply, Pennywise looked back. With both eyes.

Taken aback, Georgie flinched away as of the mere glance had burned him.

"I wish I could teLl myself. Then I'd glaDly tell you." Still on his elbows, Pennywise leaned closer, eyes brightening omniously. "Otherwise, I wouldN't be here."

. . .

Something in the way the 'clown' said it, in a tone so low and firm, Georgie suddenly wished the desk wasn't at his back.

So he could lean away. Right up against the wall.

Yes, Pennywise had saved him.

But...

There was still an undeniable, lurking menace to this person... being... whatever it was.

It.

No, not it.

He.

The voice was breathy, occasionally whistly, veering high at times, but definitely masculine.

"Are you saying... you really don't know?" Georgie asked after a beat, as gently as he knew how. "I mean, you're not just some... runaway from the circus?"

 _Or an escapee from the loony bin?_

 _A rogue magician, hit in the head one too many times?_

 _Some "can't confirm, can't deny" military experiment that got loose?_

 _A spirit, given his body back?_

 _An alien?_

Pennywise continued to stare at him, brows lowered.

Not moving. Not smiling. Not frowning. Not emoting whatsoever.

Was he even... breathing?

Then his eyes narrowed.

Just a touch.

Georgie chuckled, suddenly, nervously. He scratched at his still-unbrushed hair (comb, Georgie, comb it later), fidgeting.

"D-did I say something wrong?"

Pennywise's upper lip curled slowly, almost as if he meant to bare his teeth, like he had in the drain, before he turned away, as sharply as before.

Shaking his head, he rearranged his arms below his chin, laid his face down on them, staring off across the narrow bedroom.

"I shoulDn't."

Georgie frowned, taken aback at the other's abrupt change in demeanor.

He sounded almost... depressed. Deterred.

Was he sulking now?

Having his own internal argument to rival Denbrough's?

What? What had Georgie said wrong?

Against his better judgment, the boy sat up, shuffled closer on his knees.

He leaned in again. "Shouldn't what?"

"AsK you."

"Ask me what?"

". . ."

"Ask me what, Penny?"

". . ."

Carefully, Georgie lifted a hand, stretched it out. He stopped, bent his fingers, apprehensive. Was it too much to dare, too soon, to touch the clown's arm?

Those same arms that had lifted him out from under the road.

He came up short. Instead, he went for the ruffled frill, gently curling his fingers into the soft fabric. The red bell lying amidst its folds gave a slight _ting_ as it was jolted.

Instantly, Pennywise's left eye swiveled back.

Wide. Blank.

No, not entirely blank.

...Afraid?

"You can tell me. No one else has to know."

Compared to the silence that ensued, the unexpected _creak_ of a door swinging on its hinges went off like a buried explosive.

"G-Georgie?"

Said boy's head whipped around.

"Who are you t-talking to?"

Bill Denbrough peeked in.

And his eyes almost popped out of their sockets to roll around on the floor, they opened so wide.

" _What_ the f-f-f-f- "

But, true to his inherently-courageous nature, Georgie's big brother didn't step back.

He stepped forward, holding the doorknob in a white-knuckled grip.

" _Who_ is _that_? W-what- "

Set in a still-blank face, both of Pennywise's cerulean eyes swiveled over to focus on Bill. He stayed lying where had he appeared.

"Shhh!" Georgie shed the blanket-robe immediately, almost stumbling to his feet, hands raised. He raced over to Bill's side, shouting half in a whisper. "Keep your voice down!"

"G-Georgie, wh-hat t-t-t- "

"It's okay, be _quiet_. Please!"

Now there was some poetic irony. The younger sibling telling the older one to shush.

Not to mention, even if they were to yell for Mom and Dad, would it make a real difference?

To Georgie, the clown-shaped being on his bed, half-stuck in a wall felt more legitimate.

Said being looked back at them, his expression remaining blank as a sheet of paper. And just as white.

Bill's mouth worked soundlessly, lips framing unuttered stammers, before he finally got a grip on himself. Around a minute later.

He blinked several times, swallowed noticably.

Finally, Pennywise's attention flicked back to the younger boy. His eyes centered.

"I sEe wheRe you get your draMatic flair from, GeorgIe."

Put on the spot, the boy glanced helplessly between them. He wasn't sure what "flair" was, but apparently the brothers had surprised-dramatics in common.

What else could he say to refute or confirm it?

He shrugged.

Then Bill's shaking hand clamped down on his shoulder, pulling him back.

Trying to steer him around behind his hip.

"What- what in God's n-name- "

Pennywise cut him off with a motion. Soundlessly, like there was no audio to fit the motion, he pulled himself forward, emerging the rest of the way from the wall, as silently as any ghost on film. He perched on the edge of the bed, legs bent, like a gargoyle who had raided a costume closet.

Georgie scarcely had time to watch. He grabbed a handful of Bill's shirttail and tugged.

Once, twice, three times, trying to get his brother's arrested attention back.

"He isn't gonna hurt us, Billy."

"H-how do you know that?" Bill stammered, eyes locked on the living impossibility in front of him.

All frills, silver ruffles, crimson bells, and fiery hair.

Something that most certainly did _not_ belong in his brother's bedroom.

Or anywhere, for that matter.

Something... something about it.

Something was just _off_.

Bill could sense that much immediately.

Georgie blinked, caught up in his own thoughts, grip relaxing.

Another question answered with a question.

He glanced back at the bed, unsure.

Was Pennywise dangerous?

The truth was, he didn't know.

He didn't know enough _about_ his rescuer to be able to tell.

Sure, there was the awful, sharp-toothed face the clown had donned in the drain. His eyes had changed colors. His red and white features had started to _morph_.

But he had also fled before Georgie saw too much of it.

Why?

Had he been scared? Truly? Suddenly scared of the boy he saved, of him seeing something disturbing?

Scared of his questions?

Scared of himself?

That was a lot of things to be scared by. All at once.

In a heartbeat, Georgie Denbrough felt warm in the face, almost ashamed of himself. Of being so inconsiderate. There he had been, plying someone with so many intimidating questions, that he hadn't stopped to consider what harm he might be doing to them in asking.

No wonder Pennywise had fled.

And now...

 _...already introduced ourselveS..._

The proverbial lightbulb went off over Georgie's head.

Introductions.

Of course!

Just like before.

"Bill, this is Pennywise. He's the one who I told you about, the clown who saved me?"

"Th-this- this thing saved you?"

Georgie scowled, hands fisting. "His _name_ is Pennywise."

At that the clown snickered - the soundless, laugh-through-your-nose kind of chuckle. His smile veered into a sardonic sneer.

"InsiStent, isn't he?"

Apparently, his indulging in undeserved laughter was all it took to snap Bill back to reality.

Their suddenly-very-upside-down-inside-out reality.

The older boy frowned, brows furrowing. All of a sudden, he seemed completely unafraid.

Boldly, he took three steps forward.

Feeling mildly panicky, Georgie followed at his heels.

Pennywise, on the other hand, leaned back. _Way_ back on his heels. He reacted like Bill's encroaching presence was bringing the same end of two magnets together, repelling him away.

Like the stuttering kid was getting far too close, too quick.

Then, without warning, his hand shot up and _out_ , like a snake striking at a mouse.

Georgie gaped.

Bill stopped.

Pennywise scowled, eyes wavering from blue back to a lighter shade, an almost-green.

The very tip of his gloved finger was pressed against Denbrough's nose, poised.

With that he held the older boy away, at arm's length.

Freezing Bill in his tracks.

Time itself lagged around them before buffering back to full speed.

Their narrowed eyes stayed locked.

Blue against green.

"...That's cloSe _enough_."

"What in hell _are_ you? What do you want?" Bill growled back, just as threateningly, oblivious to how Georgie held his hands to his 'O' of a mouth.

 _Swearing! Now you know he's serious._

Seriously annoyed.

The stutter was gone.

This was getting out of hand.

Fast.

Georgie grabbed for his brother's arm. "Billy- "

Without even looking, Bill snagged him by the wrist.

"Georgie, whatever this _thing_ is, he's not human."

He tried to pull away. "I-I figured that much out already, Billy."

 _Just let me explain, please! Let me-_

His taller sibling rounded on him, all trace of the stutter vanished. "And you shouldn't be here, _alone_ with him."

"Well, it's not like I invited him- "

Arm drawn tight against his ruffled chest, Pennywise leaned even further away, weight transferring from his booted feet to his backside. He scooted across the bed to lean on the wall, hand splaying theatrically against the wallpaper.

His eyes strayed apart, then down.

"This _iS_ a bad tiMe."

Georgie glanced fretfully between them, brown eyes wide.

Already, this was out of his control.

He was caught between two sides.

Maybe for the first time.

"No, Penny, wait. I only meant- "

"We'll talk laTer, GeorgIe."

Before their eyes, the clown melted back through the wall, as smoothly as if it were a curtain. As if it weren't there.

His green eyes disappeared last.

They blinked shut.

Gone.

Numbly, Georgie stared at the vacant space for all of fifteen seconds before hands grabbed his shoulders.

And pulled him back into the tightest, fiercest, most borderline- _hurtful_ hug Bill ever gave.

"Jesus _H_ , Georgie."

Without releasing him, Bill shifted his arms and picked his brother up, turned to the door.

Somehow, on shaky legs, he carried them both out of the room.

"What the hell did we just _see_?"


	6. Weirder

**Notes:** And back to the 'sewers' we go...

Surreal enough for you yet?

* * *

 _"But I'm actually weirder than you think..."_

 _Eminem feat. Rihanna - The Marshall Mathers LP2, "The Monster"_

* * *

No.

No, no, no!

That hadn't gone right at all.

Not. At. All.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

How It thought it had everything figured out...

What to say, what to do...

Come here, wall.

Somebody I want to introduce you to.

Ow!

...No, don't do that again.

Idiot. Idddiot.

Self-inflicted pain helps nothing.

Errr...

Okay.

Think. Think, you fool.

 _What_ went wrong?

What didn't he say _right_?

What hadn't he said _fast_ enough?

Georgie was perturbed. Obviously.

It had given him a fright.

...Why?

Because It thought he had to?

Because he was... _supposed_ to?

There, one of the gaps.

The missing kernels. The bricks.

A fundamental thing.

A big thing.

If not, _the_ thing.

What It based every decision of his existence on.

Wow. That important, huh?

You don't even _know_.

...Wait.

...Ow, ow, owww, ow-ch, owie.

Why? _Why_ did it hurt so much to try and think of it?

Settle down.

Please.

Relax.

. . .

Sigh.

. . .

...

Hold on.

A "sigh"?

Since when did... It 'sigh'?

Since... never?

That was a human thing.

A noise.

The noise.

The noise It had heard.

Georgie had made it upon waking up. Before he had noticed.

What was that sound supposed to mean?

Was it deliberate? A sign of contentment?

Or did he just do it without thinking, like breathing?

Humans didn't need to tell their own hearts to pump. Their lungs to draw air.

But without it... they would cease to _be_.

Like It.

The biggest of the gaps in Its mind.

Without that missing piece, without it back in place, everything else just didn't

make

SENSE!

Agh!

...

. . .

...

Calm.

Calm down.

Getting angry is good, angry gets you motivated.

But it can't take over everything.

You need to think.

Think.

For how long?

Sift. Look. Find out.

Humans had been known to 'think' themselves into early graves.

He couldn't think that hard.

Could he?

No, It didn't die.

It slept.

To 'think' himself into an early hiberation? An early rest?

 _Heh heh heee._

That would be a first.

No, thinking didn't quash anything.

It didn't assuage the hunger.

It sated curiousity, a very altogether-different kind of hunger.

Not what he existed on.

What _did_ he exist on?

Blasted gaps.

There, mocking him.

Like a ruined bridge you intended to cross.

With answers waiting on the other side -

Blasted boy.

It had already started to crumble the wrong way.

Just when It thought to back off, to reconsider...

The older one.

Bill?

Or was it Bill _y_?

Billy, boy.

Billy boy.

Georgie. Billy.

Seperate rooms, same home.

Brothers, obviously.

Can't have one without the other.

Just not right.

...Wait...

What had Georgie said?

What had echoed toward It, before he knew the boy's name?

A muffled cry. Through the wall?

Listen. You heard it, didn't you?

Those words...

. . .

 _"Bill's gonna kill me"?_

Why?

That didn't seem likely.

Billy boy seemed very protective just now.

 _"I lost the boat."_

Remember where you put her?

 _This_ paper novelty? Folded into existence, covered in layers of wax?

Bill would kill over that thing? His own sibling?

...No.

Georgie was hurting at the time, washed into the gutter.

Scared. Alone.

Rambling.

Didn't know what he was saying.

Bill would have pulled Georgie up, back onto the road.

Had he been there.

He might have even prevented the whole moment.

Instead, It was.

It was there.

It had helped, hadn't he?

Even if he didn't know why...

...why...

...was he supposed to?

Why? How?

Was It _meant_ to be there?

To save Georgie?

Save, yes...

...For later?

Why?

.

..

...

. . .

. . . . .

. . .

...

..

.

Still hungry, remember?

How could I forget?

Hungry, for what?

Figure it out!

Dolt.

The bridge.

That bridge needed to be repaired.

Fast.

Before that gap got any wider.

Lest It forget how to 'breathe'.

.

..

...

..

.

What was that?

Outside?


	7. Erase

**Notes:** And now, back to Billy boy.

This should be good.

* * *

 _"Did you think you could erase me..."_

 _Red - of Beauty and Rage, "Fight To Forget"_

* * *

Nightmare.

This had to be a nightmare.

He wasn't awake.

He was asleep.

He was walking.

Sleepwalking.

Carrying Georgie back to his room.

Bill was imagining it. All of it.

He had to be.

Nightmares weren't real. They were illusions, the byproducts of overactive brains that refused to turn themselves off even after your body laid itself down to rest. They went wild. Impossible fears were suddenly given form and substance that they otherwise would not _have_ in the real world.

So why had what what he seen in Georgie's room seemed so... tangible?

The silver-suited thing on the bed?

The gloved fingertip on Bill's nose?

The clown who could slide through walls as if they were water?

That was _real_?

Georgie was still struggling when Bill sat him down on the bed, among the disheveled covers. And, gradually, his racing, misfiring, sleep-starved brain slowed down long enough to comprehend what his agitated sibling - his precious, perfect baby brother, the same one he had almost lost and not even _known_ it - was babbling on about.

Bill started to listen.

He frowned.

He didn't comprehend any more than he had before.

The boy sounded positively loony.

"...And you didn't even give him a _chance_."

"A chance?" Bill blurted out, disbelieving all else, unable to _understand_ anything else.

Georgie was glaring at him.

Their eyes locked. "Did we not see the same thing just now?"

"You scared him away."

"Scared _?_ Him? I _scared_ him?"

No.

They had not seen the same thing.

Breathing hard, Georgie struggled anew, finally threw the older boy's hands off his arms. "Fine, _we_ scared him. I did, with my questions, I think. I asked too much."

Bill held his forehead with both hands, unceremoniously flopping back against the set of pillows. Ugh. His frontal lobe was starting to throb.

Just when he thought he was over feeling ill, too...

He sighed, deep and profound. Fatigue bit him again, and was holding on tight. "That doesn't b-b-begin to explain anything, Georgie."

"I was figuring it out, when you showed up," the younger boy groused. He wrung his hands, crawled up next to Bill, galanced around, thought twice, crawled back to the foot of the bed. He sat up on his knees. He looked frantically about the more-spaceous bedroom as if expecting the vision to make an encore appearance.

Fidgeting at its finest, a mile a minute.

It was exhausting to watch.

"You scared him away."

Bill clamped his eyes shut. They were starting to hurt also.

Already he was off balance. Being sick had toyed too much with his internal clock. His sleep cycle was totally backwards. His nerves were shot.

God, he felt so messed up. In body and mind.

In some perverse way, the only thing good about it all would be not having to explain anything to their selectively-deaf parents.

Had he been questioned, Bill was fairly sure he would stroke out.

Incensing thought.

And Georgie had the gall to accuse him of 'scaring' the danger away.

"If yo-you're trying to make me feel guilty, it's not working."

The bed gave a jump.

Then a sudden, bruising pain bounced off Bill's right shoulder.

"Ow! Hey!"

Clutching at the new hurt, he turned over on his side, back hunched defensively. He glared at the figure suddenly hovering above.

Angry brown eyes stared back down at him.

Bill almost drew back against the pillows, equal parts amazed and unsure.

Georgie had never hit him before.

Like _hit_ him, hit him.

Deliberately.

"Are you gonna _listen_ to me or _not_?"

Bill's attention strayed away, toward the world outside.

Blackness. It was still raining. The bedroom windows were darkened, flecked with coats of raindrops. Outside, the trees continued to sway in the storm, veering in and out of sight in the half-light that found their wet leaves.

Beyond the light, it was like the tall, thick-trunked things didn't even exist.

Why couldn't the same be true for that damn _creature_?

Out of sight, out of mind?

Bill sighed, let go of his barely-aching shoulder, and sat up against the headboard.

Georgie wasn't going to let the matter go, back to the dark. Where it belonged.

Like it or not, they had to come to an understanding.

Here and now.

"Where do I start, Georgie? I was listening before. But this- hey! Stop already."

The younger boy smacked his arm, palm open, one last frustrated hit for the road. Then he flopped over to sit beside him, arms around his knees.

"You weren't listening before, Billy. You blamed it all on me bumping my head."

Bill kept quiet.

There was no denying that without sounding like the world's worst liar.

Undaunted, Georgie kept going.

"Then Penny shows up in our house and you still don't believe me?"

" _Why_ are you calling him that all of a sudden?"

"What? Who?"

 _Don't feed me that line._

"The thing. The clown."

"He's not a _thing_."

"Until I know different, he is to me."

"Fine!" Georgie huffed, crossing his arms. "I know better than you already."

"On this? No, you don't, Georgie. You don't know. You can't. Nobody does. I've never seen a clown who can phase through _walls_. Not on TV, not anywhere."

"Is that really such a big _deal_? I was trying to get him to talk. I _would_ have, had you not shown up."

Bill grit his teeth, wincing. New pain was creeping up behind his eyes, like his very optic nerves were sizzling, protesting, demanding a break. His head hurt even worse at the thought that his brother could have talked his way into more trouble.

If he hadn't already, that is.

Gingerly, the older boy closed his eyes and sighed.

"Say that you _had_ , then. What would you have asked him?"

"What he wanted."

 _Always a good first question._

"And what do you think he would said?"

"The... truth, if he knew. I don't think he knew."

 _How enigmatic._

"He had to have known what he wanted, G-Georgie. You don't drink water if you don't realize you're thirsty first."

Intent follows the bullet.

And whatever the creature's words might have been, Bill would have been more than willing to step in front of them to keep Georgie safe. Didn't matter if it was a lone gunman, or a firing squad, or an entire army infantry division.

His brother's well being was his responsibility, wasn't it?

Said brother still had a hankering to play devil's advocate, seemingly.

Disappointingly.

"So? He could have appeared to you, or Mom, or Dad, if he wanted. But he didn't. He came to see me. Maybe because it's something only I could know?"

"What could you possibly know about him that I don't?"

 _I thought we were on the same page with the_ not- _knowing._

"Something," Georgie's voice insisted, like that was all the answer he needed. Like it was good enough. And to a six-year-old, full of nothing but the best intentions, it probably was. "And even if I didn't know, I would help him figure it out. He saved me."

 _Oh, great, Denbrough. Whatever that thing was, it's got your brother leashed already. A leash with the word LOYALTY stamped across it._

"You can't be serious."

Accusation might work.

"No, I am. What makes you think I'm not?"

Aaand then it was served back.

What had he felt before again?

"It's just... it's all a bit too much to take in, Georgie. All at once? There's too much we don't know. It's too impossible to be true."

"I'm sitting here with you. If it weren't true, I'd be dead. And you'd be here, alone."

 _Do you wish that now, Bill? Do you wish I was_ _ **dead**_ _because of a freak accident, just so you'd have an easier time accepting it?_

Bill balked and winced again, at a very different pain. Suddenly, his tear ducts were stinging.

Never.

Never in a million years.

Without opening his eyes, he reached for the body next to him, catching him in a one-armed hug around the shoulders.

"Urmph, Bill, _stop_ , let go."

Grunting, Georgie struggled, wrenched, and tried to pry free. His fingers clawed ineffectively at the strong arm. At that moment, he didn't share the same sentimentality.

He was too in love with his newfound insanity.

The worst form of puppy love ever, that's all it was.

Once he knew better...

"I'm not letting go."

 _Not of you. Not to that thing._

 _I've almost lost you once._

 _It won't happen again._

Bill almost hoped the apparition, the being, the thing, whatever It was - that seeing It a second time would convince his brother of everything that was wrong with putting your trust in a stranger.

But then, maybe he would simply get lucky.

Once in a billion years lucky.

And that was the first and _last_ time they would ever see Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

* * *

October storms didn't relent. Not once they got going.

Winter was on its way. The gulfstream winding over Maine gathered moisture as it passed over the Great Lakes basin. Before it reached the Atlantic, the excess vapor was cast over the northeastern United States. As rain in October, then into snow throughout November and December.

Running through the town of Derry, Maine, the Kenduskaeg River had already grown cold. Too cold for the denezins to enjoy any more late-summer swims. Not cold enough to freeze. Frost was already forming on the banks at night, but that - so far - was the only visible sign of the season change, creeping up on them all like a thief in the night.

Or so some horseshit-poet might have written.

The young adults of Derry didn't let that stop them from having a good time.

Ultimately, it did not matter who they were. Only what they were up to at the time of their demise.

Drunk. High. Riding aloft on the blessed aftereffects of sex and weed.

Making stupid wagers.

Like, bet you can't swim that distance in ten minutes.

What? In this weather?

You chickening out already?

In front of my pals?

No, never.

Got'a impress.

It's only fifty feet on a good day. Swim farther than that back and forth in the pool at Derry High.

Go on, then. Naked.

What? Are you nuts?

Clothes would just bog you down, anyway.

Oh, you gotta point.

All right. Hundred bucks says I make it.

Done.

Done!

Watching from the shadows, amidst the reeds, below the concourse, beneath the bridges. From everywhere, all at once, something watched.

Saw the body with its alcohol-saturated brain stagger down to the water's edge. Shed their garments. Plunge in.

Somehow, they managed to keep themselves above water.

The onlookers cheered halfheartedly, before turning back to sating their own animalistic needs.

Halfway across, the unseen observer struck, like a waiting crocodile.

In one fell swoop, the life crossing the river was snuffed out.

A dark stain spread across the surface of the water, growing thick at first.

Thicker, as the creature did its grisly work.

Then fainter and fainter. The blood was there one moment, gone the next, as the current dispersed it.

The creature dismembered the body, seperated it into thirds.

It consumed the first two.

The third was dragged off to its lair.

The next morning, with the first rays of sunlight, there would be no sign of the body.

Save for the clothes on the beach.

And the frantic, hung-over witnesses would be interviewed by one Officer Butch Bowers.


	8. Going

**Notes:** In a way, the first three chapters and interludes were merely the _prologue_. The bulk of act one/two begins now. With another interlude.

That said, thank you all for the comments, favs, and follows thus far!

Enjoy it for what it is! I have.

* * *

 _"I don't know where I'm going, but I just keep moving on..."_

 _Three Days Grace - Outsider, "Right Left Wrong"_

* * *

Time.

Bide your time.

He hasn't forgotten you.

Your moment will come around again.

He told Billy boy.

He hasn't told anyone else.

Good.

Why?

Are you happy he hasn't?

...'Happy' isn't the word that jumps to mind.

But trying to tell Billy boy was difficult enough.

It had heard as much, via the pipes.

The pipes.

Every home in Derry had their set.

Somewhere for the water, the waste to go.

Filthy, but necessary.

A home without them was a place in crisis. Not a home.

And in terms of a listening network...

They were perfect.

It took less concentration, less energy.

To watch everything oneself, without aid of the physical realm, was plain, old exhausting.

But those metal fixtures, they carried the sound as cleanly as everything else.

If one knew how to listen.

Not like Billy boy.

He hadn't listened.

He still wasn't.

Too wrapped up in himself, too in love with denial.

Loved his brother, yes.

Didn't love what had happened in October.

Nope, not at all.

And besides the rift between the Denbrough boys...

The days were getting shorter, while the nights grew longer.

The air was cool. Now the world it covered was starting to freeze.

The trees had shed their leaves.

Stagnant freshwater was hardening.

People spent less time outdoors.

Inside.

Inside, instead, inside, where they could be heard.

It did less watching.

Less killing.

More listening.

No point in exposing yourself.

Unless you were certain.

Certain, assured beyond all doubt...

Assured you had a meal to grab.

One that wouldn't get away.

Couldn't get away.

But even then...

It felt like it was going about this the wrong way.

Ow...

That damn gap. Still there, still festering like an open sore in Its mind, that wouldn't fix itself.

The hurt.

The never-ending _pain_ of it...

It used to think it was clever.

Used to.

Until he was reminded.

The leftovers, floating above his head.

They let It study, dissect, deduce how It used to hunt.

To a point.

They all seemed... unsatisfying. Flavorless.

Like a loaf of bread, a set of chicken eggs. Sitting on the counter too long.

Left alone, they grew stale. Rotten.

With no hint as to how you obtained them in the first place.

What kept them fresh.

The leftovers were starting to spoil.

Why? What was he doing wrong?

The supply kept dwindling.

One at a time.

He tried not to get carried away, to not get too obsessed with feeding.

To not let the hunger dominate _everything_.

But there was so little else to _do_...

Think. Keep thinking.

It's bound to occur to you eventually.

Clever thing, you used to be.

You still have time.

The rats.

The small, fuzzy animals with the bare tails, that scuttle about in the shadows.

Was that a hint?

They usually scattered when he was nearby.

Out of curiousity, he killed one.

Broke its neck.

Examined it. Diced it.

Was stupid enough to sample it.

UGH!

Won't do that again.

Not even a lick, no.

Nasty, _nasty_ thing.

Like mushy-bad-fruit nasty.

But before, before It had snapped the rat's neck-

What was that? That smell emitting from the rodent?

Small as their brains were, they carried with them some sensation.

Hunger. Caution. Lust.

Recognizable feelings.

That last one thought, what it felt just before the end...

Was that it?

That was why?

Why the bigger kills didn't taste right?

Most of them were taken in ambush.

His method.

Ambush. Ambush hunting.

Was that why?

He was simply being... too quick about it?

The something he was overlooking.

Under his nose the whole time.

It couldn't be that simple.

...Could it?


	9. Wait

**Notes:** And finally we get (some of) the rest of the Losers.

* * *

 _"The blue skies we wait on..."_

 _Nickelback - Feed The Machine, "After The Rain"_

* * *

Georgie Denbrough didn't take chances in the wintertime. Even if there wasn't snow on the ground yet, he knew the importance of layers, of bundling up. Avoiding frostbite was a very real goal. Even now, he had classmates with somewhat-warped ears, missing earlobes, who had failed to see the importance of keeping your head covered from a biting wind.

And some, who remembered their hats, but not their mittens or scarves.

Little disfigurations that would last the rest of their lives.

Awful momentos.

Because they didn't figure out for themselves the necessity of keeping warm to and from the bus stop, or the few blocks it was to walk back and forth from Derry Elementary.

And Georgie liked to walk.

Not that the bus wasn't warmer, but sometimes, the wet heat, the sour, closed-in smell, the ruckus of the other children - it just didn't appeal to him.

Plus, if he left early enough... it gave him time to detour.

To the drain at the intersection of Witcham and Jackson Streets.

The sky was a clear, robins-eggshell blue today. The pressure was up, and the chilly air gnawed at him relentlessly, trying in vain to tear past the boy's many cotton garments. While such diligent attention to his coat and its many accessories was rewarded in that regard, it also meant he had all the flexibility of a disused car tire, lying on its side at the landfill.

When pressed, he could twist this way and that, but good luck getting where he was going in a _hurry_.

It was fine. School was his only destination most days. You usually didn't have to dodge or twist to and from there. Except the weekends. Those, he spent at home, or with his own small circle of friends. What games they got up to, what homework they did together, it all had become largely meaningless since his little 'slip up' in October.

Here it was, the end of November, just after Thanksgiving, and so far, there had been no further sign of his for-better-for-worse rescuer from the gutter.

 _We'll talk laTer, GeorgIe._

Later?

How long was "later" supposed to mean?

Georgie was worried.

Standing there, heedless of the occasional vehicle rolling slowly by behind him, staring at the cold, blank hollow under the curb, he was no less concerned than the first time.

Morning after morning he had visited.

Sometimes for a few seconds, sometimes five minutes. Twenty at the most.

He had nowhere else to look. No more 'apparitions' had teleported into his bedroom, middle of the night.

And day after day, there was no sign of the thin-pupilled, color-changing eyes.

Had he and Bill scared Pennywise that badly?

"Ey, Shortstop! Fancy meeting you here."

Georgie blinked, almost frowning. Before he could descend further into his musings, Fate saw fit to toss him an unexpected visitor.

Off to the boy's right, sitting astride his bicycle on the icy sidewalk, Richie Tozier was almost dressed for the weather. Save for one detail.

Face uncovered.

He wasn't bundled up right.

And his out-of-season mode of transportation.

Georgie couldn't help snickering anyway.

Besides the never-ceasing running of the mouth, risk-taking was probably the second most important staple that made Richie, _Richie_.

"What? I say something funny?"

"Hi, Richie," Georgie wisely declined to answer the very-loaded question. "You on your way to school?"

While a very tempting _duh!_ could have been shoehorned in as an answer, Richie declined the temptation. He shrugged, hands still grasping his bike's brake controls. "Yeah, a few inches at a time. There's an evil force keeping me from getting there too fast."

But wasn't school evil incarnate?

At least, according to Tozier?

So, if the 'evil' was keeping you away...

 _Makes no sense._

 _But what does he care?_

Georgie shook his head. "You're just taking your time because you can."

"Dang right."

"But, the sooner you go, the sooner it's over with."

"Doesn't make the clock tick any faster the rest of the day, kid."

"It's not so bad," Georgie tried to reason (against his better judgment; _reason_ , with Richie Tozier?). "The lessons, I mean. If you just go along with it- "

"Yeah, yeah," Richie waved a dismissive glove. "Can we just file that under 'whatever' and go on? Actually, I meant to come find you."

Something colder than the air around them formed a new lump in Georgie's gut.

He frowned.

 _Bill?_

"You did?"

"Yeah, I mean, it's not every day I get to wake up to a call from the Stutter. But when it happens, I take it seriously. He's too proper to bother, most times. And he knows how Proper and I don't get along."

 _Okay, stop him before he rambles too far on that front._

"I haven't been skipping class, Richie," Georgie pointed out. "If he thinks I am- "

"Y'know, you ought to tell him yourself," Tozier interjected, frowning. "Honestly, I've never known you two to go so long without talking like its the last time you'll lay eyes on one another. Was a time it happened every day. But if Bill needs me to play go-between now, I admit, it's a little worrying."

At that, Georgie went quiet. For a moment, his eyes flicked back to the empty drain.

When the silence stretched on a minute too long, Richie went on:

"What? You've been sneaking off to school an hour early every morning for the past two weeks. Did you think Bill just wasn't noticing?"

 _Don't. Don't tell him._

"He doesn't... he doesn't need to worry, Richie," Georgie finally stammered. "I know what I'm doing. I'm dressed for the weather. I just like... having time to think before class. Without Bill, or Mom, or Dad, anyone around. Why is that a big deal?"

"And again, that's not for me to answer, bud," Tozier winced as the breeze kicked up again. Frost was already apparent at the edges of his glasses. "Can we just get going? I'm here now, and Bill would have my head on a stick if he found out I just left you alone without seeing you the rest of the way to school."

Backed into a corner, Georgie saw no way to talk his way around that.

Not without blurting everything out.

Richie didn't know of his tumble into the drain, much less what had ensued afterward. Bill hadn't have told him. If he had, it would have been the first comment out of the Trashmouth:

 _"Still pining after that monster who saved you, Twerp?"_

Okay. Maybe not those exact words. Richie was brash, but he was no Henry Bowers, either.

Reluctantly, Georgie shifted his shoulders, pulling his loosened backpack straps tighter with mittened hands.

 _Sorry, Penny. Later._

Without a second glance at the drain, he stepped up and past it, onto the sidewalk.

 _You know where to find me._

* * *

As it turned out, _where_ was not just exclusive to the Denbrough household.

 _Where_ could be _any_ where.

And at least Georgie didn't have to go far out of his way to _be_ found.

The worst of it was, when Pennywise found him, the boy couldn't talk back.

Not as much as he would have liked.

Derry Elementary's small book-filled room, posing as its library, only had three reading tables. But like all libraries, the first thing you noted upon entering it was big-texted sign on the far wall declaring QUIET-PLEASE.

The last hour of the day was an equivilant of the High School's study hall. Children grades one through three were permitted to go to and from their classrooms, socializing, playing board games, helping one another with their homework. There was at least one teacher or staff aide present per room to supervise and oversee everybody.

The worksheets he had been given could wait until tonight. Georgie thought to visit the reading room. Perhaps a good story would take his mind off the awkward quagmire that his home life seemed to have slipped into.

Alas, the room was pretty short on engaging fiction.

Especially compared to the kind he was living.

He was just shelving the fourth book he had picked up when the thing _lurched_ in his hand.

Georgie froze, arm outstretched.

No, it couldn't be.

Shove aside the doubt.

He snatched it back, threw open the pages.

Where once there was playful-looking, whimsical text, blank paper stared back at him.

Then, as if drawn by an unseen ink quill, crude-looking words blotted into existence.

 _Georgie?_

Denbrough felt his palms grow hot. Whether it was from the book or because of his own nerves, his suddenly-racing breaths, he couldn't tell.

Transfixed, he didn't dare risk looking away.

 _Calm down. It's me._

 _I know, I said we'd talk later._

Then, toward the bottom of the page:

 _I'm... sorry. I didn't mean it'd be this much later._

 _I've been... busy._

"Doing what?" Georgie whispered, gasping as he heard a nearby _thump_.

Someone else had shelved a book.

Then he dared to exhale.

There was a pause.

Then the lines of words faded away, and new ones began to take their place.

 _You don't want to know._

"Why not?"

 _Because you don't._

 _You don't even know that you don't._

Georgie blinked and frowned. What was that supposed to mean?

 _I needed time to think, Georgie._

 _To think about what you said._

 _And..._

The boy waited, unmoving.

The text faded again.

Reappeared.

 _You said, "No one else has to know."_

 _What did you mean by that?_

"I meant, I can help you. If you want."

From the sound of it, the 'clown' didn't have anyone else to reach out to.

 _How? How did you think you can help me?_

 _You don't know what I am, Georgie._

 _...I don't even know._

Denbrough didn't need to hear the forlorn tone behind the words.

The reluctant prefix dots spoke for themselves.

"You have to have _some_ idea," Georgie whispered. Glancing around, he ducked into the gap between two shelves, holding the book close to his eyes. He felt a bit like playing a spy in a movie might. "You have a name. You've had a month to think. Do you really have no one else to ask?"

 _If I'm bothering you, I can stop._

The book suddenly seemed to radiate flat dejection. Rejection.

"I didn't say that."

 _You and Billy aren't getting along. Because of me._

 _I don't want that. You don't want that._

 _I don't want you to not want something._

The words faded.

And the book stayed blank for so long, Georgie almost thought Pennywise had "hung up".

Then:

 _Yes, I don't know much, but I know what I don't like._

Despite himself, Georgie couldn't help a little giggle.

The clown's peculiar vernacular was funny at least.

It made a bit more sense than "you don't know that you don't want to know".

"I don't want to fight, either," he agreed. "Not with Billy, or anybody. But if you came to see us again- "

 _ **No.**_

There was no explosive sound to match the two letters of denial.

Georgie still jumped like a landmine had gone off, shoulders bumping against the wall behind him.

"W-what? Why not?"

 _Billy._

 _Billy doesn't like me._

 _Doesn't like the idea of you talking to me._

 _Or the other way around._

 _You can talk to him._

 _Without me there._

 _Then... if he's wanting to listen..._

 _Maybe... you can help me?_

"How am I supposed to do that?" Georgie asked, voice veering back to the normal volume.

To his dismay.

He heard heavy, adult-sounding footsteps, drawing near.

 _Do what?_

"Talk to Billy, silly. He won't listen to me about this."

The page went blank.

Then the last set of words eased into view, almost timidly, they faded in so slowly.

One line after another.

 _Your brother loves you, Georgie._

 _If you think it's important enough..._

 _He'll listen._

 _Until then, I won't-_

"Mr. Denbrough, what are you doing back there?"

Georgie jumped again, half-closing the flimsy covers, defensive. His cheeks flushed.

"Mrs. Junkins."

Found out by the librarian, he half-expected to be asked to explain who he had been speaking to. But instead, he was forced to return the book. With one last glance, he saw that the print inside had returned to normal.

Bundling up for the walk back home, he thought to stop and visit the drain.

* * *

"What won't you do?"

Confounding _clown_.

Already, Georgie felt like his once-normal priorities were screwed up.

Go home, do homework. Eat dinner. Sleep. Go to school. Repeat.

Then Pennywise threw in the wild card of "talk to your brother, then we'll talk again".

With every brief encounter, it seemed like the younger Denbrough was leaving with more questions than he started with.

And getting no closer to real answers at the same time.

 _"If you think it's important enough..."_

Was he?

Was helping Pennywise worth his time?

Georgie had known his two other best friends since before preschool.

What made this thing from the sewer suddenly more special than them?

Special... in a very different way.

Pennywise had only saved him from a watery, wasting death. That thundershower had gone on for another three days. Trapped down there with no food and in the _filth_ , to think he could have perished that way- Georgie still had the occasional nighttime flashback to those awful, desperate minutes.

He wanted to help.

But at the same time, talk about playing hard to get.

Calling into the sewer seemed like the next most logical thing to do. The afternoon was proving to be about ten degrees warmer than that Monday morning. He could stand the conditions for a little while longer.

"Penny, please, answer me!"

"Georgie! Get away from there."

Bill.

Trekking home with Richie, Eddie, and Stanley. Together, they had slowed to a stop at the street corner.

Richie stood, still atop his bike. The others walked, backpacks on.

What a surprise.

Georgie sighed and hung his head.

Had he been standing there for an hour already? The high school's day ended about sixty minutes after the elementary's.

Bill stood Silver on her kickstand before marching over to intercept his younger sibling. His expression was stern, grim almost.

Then Georgie cringed reflexively as he was grabbed by the hood of his jacket, half-lifted off his hands and knees.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Trying to catch a cold, looks like," Eddie quipped, albeit to himself. "Or something worse. Why is your hood off?"

"Did you lose something down there, Georgie?" Stan called. He sounded, and looked, puzzled enough, like there wasn't anything amiss.

For just a second, Georgie was tempted to say yes. He had lost something down in the drain.

His life as he used to know it.

About a month ago.

But Stan didn't know. Neither did Eddie, or Richie.

It wasn't fair to drag them into this.

Bill hadn't.

If he thought it necessary, he would have.

And whatever their current feelings of disagreement were, Georgie could agree with his brother on that much.

Time for another talk.


	10. Conscience

**Notes:** High-water mark for interlude-based torment here. Consequences of high intelligence, you have emotions. And oftentimes, they don't get along.

* * *

 _"Why do I have a conscience? All it does is fuck with me..."_

 _Korn - Issues, "Trash"_

* * *

 _Your brother loves you?_

...Had he really said that?

All at once, it made him feel warmed to his core and want to retch without end.

The sincerity of it. The sharp, unmitigated stinging.

It was committed to his illusion, yes, but...

Had that been his thought? Or someone else's, temporarily borrowed?

Love.

Wasn't that throwing a bit too much sentiment salt on the meal?

Meal.

No.

That's not what Georgie was.

Not... not yet.

No!

Yes... yes, he was.

Eventually.

Stupid, get ahold of yourself.

Yourself.

You don't even know what that is.

Shut up!

I'm trying, trying to figure it out.

By doing what?

Sticking to the darkness, the gutters.

Preying on the people of this town.

That was "figuring things out"?

You don't need to fill in the gaps in your head.

Feel that, the one in your gut?

That's more important.

Errr!

No, it isn't!

I used to know.

That can't be everything.

Everything I always was.

You can't be anything else.

Oh, what makes you so sure?

Because, since forever, as far back as you can recall, isn't this how it has always been?

Maybe, but-

Why would you want to change that?

I... I don't. But I can't- I can't _not_ know.

Knowing, not knowing, why let there be a difference at all?

No one cares.

 _I_ care.

Well, that's your problem.

Stop caring.

It was easier when you didn't.

What was?

. . .

No, not again...

Yes, that one.

Dummy.

Should've known the ice wasn't thick enough.

Serves them right.

Serves you.

Until next time.

They won't find this one.

Blah.

Same as always.

Junk food.

That's what humans call it.

Is that it, what I've been doing wrong?

The floating ones, the leftovers...

Almost gone.

And these aren't...

Not the same.

There hasn't been one. Like the leftovers, not one.

Too quick, you're killing them too quick.

Leaving bits behind.

The uniformed humans, they're getting suspicious.

Sloppy.

It's not just the killing you're getting wrong.

Your grip.

It's slipping.

If not already slipped.

What? What grip?

On everything.

You're hungry.

You've grown forgetful.

I didn't 'grow' anything.

I woke.

I forgot.

Or... I forgot.

Then I woke...?

 _What_ made me forget?

Does it matter?

Idiot.

You've forgotten to make _them_ forget.

How? Using what?

The same way you used the book at the school.

That was a simple manipulation, child's play.

Human brains, though.

So much more nuanced, so complicated.

Like your own.

You prey on them, but you don't know.

You don't know what makes them tick.

You used to.

Before.

When you had everything under control.

Now you barely know how to keep your own thoughts controlled.

Leaning on some pathetic boy to show you how to remember.

So sad.

So desperate.

No, I know! I do.

I know enough to keep going.

Repeating yourself isn't getting anywhere.

I'll keep going.

For how much longer?

Better act fast.

Faster than you have.

Get it together.

Use the boy.

However you think.

For good. For bad.

Befriend him. Kill him.

Truth. Lie.

Doesn't matter.

They don't matter.

Quickly.

Before the snow comes.

Wait.

Ye-

N-

...

What's that?

. . .

Ow...

Ow, ow, ow.

What _is_ that?

...

..

.

You're forgetting how to breathe.


	11. Beginning

**Notes:** More with the Losers. About time, right? We need some levity.

Excuse the opening tongue-in-cheek pun. I couldn't help myself.

* * *

 _"We're the beginning of the end..."_

 _Fall Out Boy - Save Rock And Roll, "Young Volcanoes"_

* * *

"What's eating them?"

Stanley Uris wasn't given to hyperbole.

He tended to state things as they were.

Unless he was rattled.

If he were truly agitated, his question would have been more along the lines of:

 _"What's been eating them... for_ days _?"_

Or maybe that was how Richie Tozier would have framed his query. But, being more in the know than either Stan or Eddie, he had no need to ask.

He didn't exactly care, even if the enduring tension and how obnoxiously long it had lasted was starting pique his curiousity.

Just a little.

"Dunno. Whatever it is, it's got Bill acting twice as squirrelly as I've ever seen him."

"Squirrelly?" Stan blinked, glancing through the sides of his dark eyes. Held in a steady hand, his pencil remained pressed to his notebook. "He seems pretty calm to me."

"Well, you haven't gotten a phone call from him when he sounds it."

"And you have?"

"Yeah. Couple nights ago."

Not looking past the surface of that question, Richie's attention had turned (briefly) back to his waiting assignment. He flipped a page in the thick textbook back and forth, then the next, and the one after that, probably lamenting the length of the chapter he was expected to read.

"All this, on the Battle of Vicksburg, really? Why does it matter we know what that was?"

Then, lightbulb!

"Richie."

"Hmm?"

Pencilling in a set of even-more impressively-exaggerated eyebrows on the first historical portrait he skimmed to, Tozier hardly glanced up.

Pause.

Then, the inevitable happened.

"You know that's a fineable offense," Eddie commented, distantly, seated across the table from them. Still reading through the chapter, his textbook was propped up on his knees, leaning on the table's edge.

Without looking up, Richie smirked.

Indulging in some artistic license. Don't interrupt, Eds. Genius at work.

And now, some buckteeth to go with that moustache.

This long-dead face never looked so good.

Then he remembered to quip back:

"Doesn't matter. You can't bill me if I'm broke."

"Yes, they can."

" _Richie_."

He glanced up past his frames. "What, Eds? Need me to touch up your book, too?"

"Err, no! You were talking about Bill a moment ago?"

Aw.

Way to spoil the fun, man.

Heaving the heaviest of sighs, Richie pointed with his eraser, to the mostly-empty living room adjescent to the mostly-occupied kitchen. "He's right over there. You can talk to him yourself, y'know."

"I'm not. I'm asking you."

"Well, maybe I don't feel like explaining."

"If you weren't gonna explain, why bring it up?"

"Guys."

Stan's blasé interruption successfully drew both gazes his way, before they could fully devolve into their budding argument.

He had set his pencil down.

"I'd like to know, too, Rich. Tell us, and you can borrow my notes."

Ahh, what a bargain.

Contented, Richie set his aside.

"Well. Not to talk behind his back or anything, but if you haven't already guessed, he and Georgie haven't been seeing very eye-to-eye lately."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because, Stanley, how many six-year-olds do you know who sneak out of the house to go to school _early_?"

. . .

"You're kidding," Eddie deadpanned, brows lowered over dark, unfettered eyes.

"The 'going to school' part? Yeah, I was. Georgie didn't say, but I caught him staring at that same drain this morning."

"The same- the one we found him at?" Stan clarified, gesturing back over his shoulder with his thumb. His face was the definition of bewildered. "Just now?"

" _The_ very same." Richie's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. He leaned in, elbows on the tabletop, fingers teepeeing for dramatic effect. "And it ain't the first time, from what I've heard."

Eddie blinked, exchanged an increasingly-confused look with Stan. "Why would Georgie leave to visit a drain? Unless, he really did lose something down there? Or what he thought he would find- That makes no sense."

"Because something went down, and Bill hasn't told us." Sure he had their rapt attention, Richie laid his plan out. "And I think we ought to hear what it is before you guys leave tonight."

 _Even if it only means_ looking _like we give something of a damn._

What could be the harm in hearing the Denbroughs out?

If it meant no more future awkward phone calls, Richie would be happy to listen.

* * *

Sitting on the couch, with a chilly window looming behind their heads like an unwelcome eavesdropper, Georgie glanced over at the kitchen. And its crowded table.

That they hadn't joined.

"They're talking about us, Billy."

Bill stayed where he was, leaning back against the dark blue cushions, arms crossed loosely in his lap. He frowned, blue eyes canting to look the same way. "I know."

"You still haven't told them?"

"No."

Georgie turned back to him, brow furrowed. "Why?"

Cringe.

Now there was a simple question that could easily lead into a far-too-complicated answer.

But Bill supposed he could do his best to honor it. He wanted the tension gone as much as Georgie did, but getting there, back to neutral ground, was no simple matter.

Like crossing the Mississippi in a rowboat versus an outboard.

There was a lot of rowing still to do.

Bill straightened up, scooting forward, leaning with his elbows on his knees.

Unthinkingly, Georgie mirrored the same posture, drawing close.

"They... I'm ha-having a hard enough time believing it even _happened_. Now. After s-so many weeks. How can I expect them to?"

"I'll tell them if you don't."

Georgie's out-of-nowhere declaration didn't scare Bill.

The unmistakable resolve behind the words did.

He looked up, gaped. "What?"

"I said- "

Bill cut him off, grabbing the younger boy's bicep from behind, pulling him even closer.

" _What_ good do you think that'll do, Georgie? Are you nuts?"

 _Please. Please say you're not._

Georgie glared back at him, whispering just as fiercely. "I almost died, and your friends don't know. Can't you tell them that, at least? We don't have to say anything about Penny."

"St-top call..." Seeing the daring, raised eyebrow aimed his way, Bill's retort died mid-sentence.

He sighed, slowly resigning himself to doing what he tried to put off for so long.

Well, if he coughed up the story, it would mean not keeping it bottled up any longer.

That first tentative call he had made to Richie, after twenty rambling, insecure minutes, _Tozier_ had been the one looking for an excuse to put down the phone.

For Bill, keeping the whole tale a secret had been exhausting enough.

Spewing out an amended version.

Would that be somehow... easier?

"I guess. If there's no way... a-around it. But after homework, or dinner. Richie's Mom won't let us go hungry."

To that, Georgie did not complain. Not overtly.

But after another ten minutes of near silence, scratching away at their worksheets on the coffee table, the boy's next comment was worryingly fixated.

"I wonder if Penny's hungry."

* * *

Tomato soup and grilled cheese.

No one ever turned their nose up at that.

With their books and papers put aside (mostly done, save for Richie's), the five boys chatted almost amiably at first, spooning soup and nibbling on cheesy crusts with the usual gusto.

Like nothing was wrong, nothing was waiting in the wings to be addressed.

It wasn't until toward the end of the meal, when Maggie Tozier had retired upstairs, that anyone dared to address the elephant in the room.

Even if said elephant was more on par with a mouse, what with the way Bill had downplayed the story so much.

Sensing this, Georgie decided to just cut to the chase.

"You guys hear what happened?"

"No, but I think we're about to." Table manners not being a real concern of his, Richie leaned on the table, hand propped up against his jaw. His smile was tolerant, at best. Without looking, he gestured with his spoon. "Bill, chime in anytime you think he's getting carried away."

 _Thanks, Rich._

 _But that won't take long at all._

"What were you doing after school, Georgie?" Stan asked instead, gently, before the elder Denbrough could possibly rebuke anything. "On the street, when we found you?"

"You shouldn't have had your hood off," Eddie launched into a lecture. Seated at Georgie's left, he was in the best position to ridicule-slash-console. His delicate features were pinched in concern. "And what if you caught something nasty, from being so close to that drain?"

"From there, it isn't so bad, Eddie," the younger boy near-interrupted, brown eyes steady. "Underneath the street is worse."

The table went mostly quiet and still, shushed by the conviction with which Georgie spoke.

It wasn't conjecture talking.

Referencing some fanciful, exotic destination.

It was... experience.

From someone who had _been_ there.

Then Bill shook his head, let his eyes drop shut for a moment.

"G-Georgie had a little... accident, a while ago, guys," he began, struggling to sound as mundane as one could sound. "At the be-beginning of October, during that week-long thunderstorm."

"When you were in intensive care?" Richie quipped, smirking. "They have any salve for when stomach acid burns the inside your nose?"

" _Richie_." Stan almost reared back, hands lifting away from his plate, in abject disgust. "Please, some of us aren't done with our food."

"So, eat faster."

"No." Eddie frowned, raised a finger in warning. "And have one of us end up giving him the Heimlich Maneuver? Hold off on that, Stan."

"Ugh. Don't worry." With an eyeroll for good measure, Stan glanced back at Bill. Pointedly. "What was this 'accident'?"

"I ended up in the drain."

. . .

And, of course, the only one to dare laugh was Richie.

Even if was a choked, disbelieving laugh of " _What_?"

Half of Georgie's mouth turned up in a quirky little smile, as if reliving his own foolish episode were something humorous after all.

"We made a wax boat, Bill and me. I went out to sail her down the street. She got away from me. I tried to save her from falling into that drain and I... slipped in."

"Slid," Bill interjected, flat as a board. Ever the holdout, he had no point of contact with the table. He was leaning back in his chair, arms crossed now, looking less enthused with each passing moment. "You slid in, Georgie."

"She went so fast, Bill. I couldn't do anything else."

"You could have let it go," Eddie choked out, eyes still wide and round, occasionally darting. What appalled him the most about this revelation, probably everything about it. "Honestly, what were you _thinking_? Do you have any idea how many _diseases_ \- "

"He's luckier he didn't crack his head open on the curb," Stan interrupted. He blinked and rubbed his temple, fitfully, like he didn't know how to process this information, how to react. "Really, how do you manage to slide _into_ a drain? You're almost too big to fit, Georgie."

"I... kinda hoped that, too. But it all happened so fast- "

"Heh. Did you get it back?" Richie asked, oddly serious all of a sudden. "The boat, I mean?"

"By the end, I didn't care, Richie. I only wanted to get back out."

Knowing they had come to the most outlandish aspect of the story yet, Bill pinched the bridge of his nose.

Let his eyes close.

 _And here's where it gets really,_ really _weird, guys._

He couldn't bear to watch.

So he listened.

Very, very reluctantly.

But what followed was... vagueness incarnate:

"Then I did."

"How?"

"I had help."

"Help, from who? Someone saw it happen?"

"Yeah."

"Who was it?"

"A friend, someone you haven't met yet."

"On that block? There aren't any kids there."

"I didn't say he was a kid."

"Sorry, you're right."

"Hm."

"They got you out?"

"Yeah. Bumped my head and I got pretty dirty. But I made it."

"Lucky thing, then. What are the odds anyone else was out in that weather?"

"Once you're of-age, you gotta come to the casino with us, squirt."

 _Is this payback for me not-believing?_

Sadism.

Who knew Georgie had it in him?

Denbrough opened his eyes and glared, still holding his nose.

Did he really deserve this?

The suspense was too much.

" _Georgie_."

"I'm getting to it, Billy."

Richie smirked, easing back off the table in mock-alarm.

"Yeesh. Touch- _ee_."

Georgie took a breath, steeling himself.

"The funny thing is, guys... the really, really funny thing is- "

Funny.

Of all the words in the melting pot that was the English language, his brother had to pick 'funny'.

"This friend is... a clown."

 _Clunk!_

Their mostly-empty bowls jumped as Richie's face hit the table.

Laughing a high, thin hyena-laugh.

Didn't matter how much his arms muffled it.

"You're _shitting_ me."

"Richie! Beep-beep."

"No." Shoulders still shaking, Tozier gestured counterclockwise, without lifting his head from his arms. Where he found the breath to speak, no one knew. "No, you got it backwards, Stan. Beep-beep comes first."

"Oh, for- Georgie, you're not serious."

Watch your course there, Eddie.

Young Captain Denbrough has already navigated those waters.

"No, I am. He was under the road."

"Un- _under_ the road?"

"In the drain. He heard me. And he helped."

"Je _sus_ , Mary, and Joseph," Richie wheezed. He managed to lift his head, in time for a tear to slide over his cheek. "Now I see why you were so reluctant to say anything, Bill."

"It's not funny, Richie."

However oxymoronic it was, Bill wished there was a way to somehow exceed what it was to deadpan.

"Shit, are you kidding me, now?"

Rolling his eyes, Eddie held his hands over Georgie's ears.

However futile it was.

"Beep- _beep_ , Richie."

Undaunted, Tozier went on. " _That_ is the story you've kept under lock and key for so long? What you've been torturing yourself over?"

Stanley tilted his head, eyebrows held high. Of them all, he seemed the most grounded in that instance. "Does that mean it's... true?"

 _I wish it wasn't, Stan._

 _I wish with all my might._

 _But reality doesn't operate on wishes._

Mutely, Georgie was staring his brother down, challenging him almost.

Tell the next part, Billy.

Bill ran a hand through his bangs, fingers clenching in a half-fist.

Grit his teeth.

"It's true because... because later that night, he showed up at our house."

Richie's laughter could have shaken dust from the ceiling light.

A heaven-sent voice in the form of Maggie Tozier's shouted down from upstairs.

"Oh, for goodness' sake, calm down, Richie! Some of us need to sleep."

"S-s-sorry, Ma!"

"And remember to do the dishes!"

He almost collapsed from his chair in dismay.

"Agh!"

"Put a cork in it, Rich," Eddie ordered, flatly, once the worst had passed.

He finally let go of Georgie's ears.

Still snickering, Richie breathed shakily and wiped at his wet face.

"I-I'm sorry, guys, but this- this is is just too much."

"Took the words right out of my mouth," Bill sighed.

"I mean, seriously? Where did you come up with that one, Georgie?"

"Real life," the youngest boy replied, solemn as ever. "Because it's what really happened."

"God da-ang it, ow! Bill!"

Pushed to his limit, Denbrough stood and lashed out.

Grabbed Richie by the ear.

"What is this? The disapproving-nun routine now? Ow, hey!"

With a twisting motion for good measure, Bill let go.

Ruckus averted.

Hands flat on the table, he stared the three non-believers down.

Well.

The story was out there.

All he could do was second Georgie's words.

"It's what really happened."

Eddie and Stan exchanged a mute glance.

Rather than his brother, Georgie looked to Richie. "He hadn't told you 'cause he didn't want to believe it, either."

"I still don't," Bill stated, for the record.

"Back up a step, guys," Eddie spoke up, as gently as he knew how. "When you say clown, do you mean, like, P.T. Barnum-clown?"

Georgie bit his lip, fidgeted with his napkin. "Not exactly. He... just looked like one."

"Looked?"

"He acted like something else."

"Acted, how?" Richie asked, still massaging his earlobe. "I mean, sometimes you see those hobos with their homemade facepaint, actin' crazy when they're high, but this guy- "

"He _looked_ the part, that's all," Bill interrupted. "And he was no hobo."

With a raised eyebrow, Tozier took his best attempt at a serious question. "You sure? I mean, he helped Georgie out of a drain, because he was out in weather no one else would be out in?"

"He was under the road, Richie, _in_ the drain."

"Squirt, you're not- "

"Serious, yes, I am! How many times do I have to _say_ it?"

The older boys flinched collectively.

Georgie, raising his voice.

It was like a flashbang going off.

And where before he was keeping his cool, he was finally starting to look agitated. Brows lowered, fists at his sides.

Breathing tight.

"His name was Pennywise. And we haven't seen him since."

The next bout of silence was blessedly long.

Giving him time to decompress for the following question.

"Seen?" Stan finally repeated, oddly-monotone. "What about before, when he turned up at the house?"

"That's when we... figured out he was... different."

Moreso than his having a proclivity for hanging out in storm drains.

At the look on Bill's face, Richie wisely kept quiet.

"He broke in?" Eddie asked

Bill sighed, finally dropping back into his chair.

"No, he- this is the strangest part yet- he- he appeared in Georgie's bedroom. Through the wall."

Eddie's eyes went soft and round all over again. Slowly, he sat back in his chair. "You're right. That _is_ the strangest part."

"Through the wall, like a- like what?"

"A ghost," Bill intoned, absently brushing crumbs from the tablecloth. "I can't think of a better comparison."

"Maybe because... he _is_ a ghost?"

"Honest to God, Stan? You believe that?"

"A ghost couldn't have gotten me out of the drain, Stanley," Georgie countered. He seemed suddenly eager to analyze this. "Something lifted me. Ghosts can't touch things. They just pass through them."

"But, when Bill says he appeared through a _wall_ , what other explanation is there?"

"He could be making it up."

"Eds!"

Kaspbrak shook his head, arms folding loosely. "No offense, Bill, but I know you're not short on imagination. How do we know you're not making any of this up? Both of you?"

Georgie scoffed.

And he made it sound like his next three words were all anyone needed to hear:

"Because it happened."

* * *

Meanwhile, on the southwestern edge of Derry, Mike Hanlon stumbled back to his feet. He turned in place, felt for his jacket pocket.

There. Flashlight, just where it was supposed to be.

Panning it around, he found his bike, pitched over where it had fallen beside the road. The empty basket cast spider-webbed shadows on the ground as the light played over it.

What his light did not find, what he really hoped to see, was the source of that clicking, _slithering_ noise.

There, in the dark.

No, there!

Behind him.

Wait!

Beside him.

In front of him.

He wheeled around again.

Whatever it was...

His assailant was moving around _far_ too fast to be any wild animal he knew of.

"Who's there?"

His breath billowed into a rapid-fire train of clouds in the night air.

The farm was only half a mile on.

And it suddenly felt like the homeschooled kid had been trying to bike his way to the moon.


	12. Call

**Notes:**...Sorry, Mikey.

* * *

 _"No one to call, everybody to fear..."_

 _Avenged Sevenfold - Nightmare, "Nightmare"_

* * *

"Now who's that, I hear? Trip, trap-tapping on my bridge?"

Or however that book went.

Right now...

It had no interest in collecting a toll.

Save perhaps, in sating his amusement.

No.

Forget play.

This was about remembering how to breathe.

This road, at this late an hour.

He could afford to take his time.

Time.

That was part of it.

What he had been doing wrong before.

Not taking enough.

Time to study.

Time to look deeper.

The humans.

There was more to them than the eye could see.

That.

That was appealing.

Their flesh was one thing.

Their emotions were something _else_.

Like this one.

Driven off his bike.

Lost in the middle of a road he rode to and from town on, practically every day.

Spinning in place.

Trying to see with those weak, fuzz-lined eyeballs.

It could sit back and watch, laughing, for as long as he saw fit.

Laughing to himself.

Laughing for all of Derry to hear, if he wanted.

But no.

Let's not get carried away.

Not yet.

In plain sight, this form would be nothing special.

Not to It.

The noises his assumed-joints made sounded worse than it really was.

In truth, this mouth was toothless.

That was the idea.

Deception.

He had to practice that a bit.

And this hapless boy was a perfect tool to experiment with.

The equivilent of the rat whose neck had been snapped.

Just a poke.

Retreat.

Nudge.

Then retreat again.

It could do this all night.

That flashlight would never find him.

But then, the boy would tire out at some point.

His emotions, they would peter out.

Then where was the fun in playing with a passed-out rat?

Maybe...

No.

This wasn't about fun.

For It, it was about survival.

Relearning what he had forgotten.

No one was around to teach him.

He had to teach himself.

Somehow, some way.

Start small, then, step by step...

Figure out what that gap in his mind was supposed to have been filled by.

Oop, where are you going?

Silly me, got distracted.

Down on the ground you go.

Eyes wide, nose flared.

Hands raised to fend him off.

Three sets of eyes blinked, quirking back and forth.

Yep, you're uneasy all right.

Why?

It hadn't even done anything yet.

Besides slink around and make a deceiving racket.

A tease.

That's what he was doing.

Teasing the boy.

And, while entertaining, it wasn't getting him anywhere.

Besides distracting himself from the damn _hunger_.

Quit with the fretting, mortal.

Its distracting.

The hunger.

That was no joking matter.

Every second of every day.

Was this really the best he could do about it?

Pick up scraps, small fry, one after another, with no real rhyme or reason?

No.

He could do better.

Right by himself.

Even if he didn't know what that was.

He would figure it out.

Georgie.

...Funny time to think of that kid.

What about him?

He said he would help.

And then It pushed him away.

Said no.

Patch things up with your brother first.

...Why?

Had It meant that?

Meant that he... _wanted_ the brothers to reconcile?

How would that make any difference?

It was supposed to be selfish.

Look out for only itself.

Sincere.

Sincerely backwards.

Or was that another lie?

A lie to the boy, but a truth he told himself?

To convince himself?

Ugh.

It didn't know what truth was anymore.

Truth. Lie.

It all rolled into the same ball of sludge at some point.

Mortals and their petty _moralities_.

...Missing something?

Huh?

The bike.

And the boy who rode it.

They were gone.

Just like his...

Sigh.

Later.

Save that one for later.


	13. Nightmare

**Notes:** Now's a good time to point out that, despite the book, this story is intended to follow the 2017 movieverse as much as possible. And with that said, considering the sheer lack of backstory details regarding the Losers, I have only two words - artistic license.

Minor OCs will remain minor, don't worry.

* * *

 _"Havin' a daytime nightmare, has always been your biggest fear..."_

 _Stevie Wonder - Characters, "Skeletons"_

* * *

Mike's relationship with his paternal grandfather was, in a word, complicated.

Like today. The idea of being re-enrolled in Derry's public education system, after five years on the farm, that in and of itself brought on a whole slew of emotions.

Most of them unwelcome.

On the other hand, Leroy didn't mean anything bad by it. He was simply looking out for his one and only grandson.

 _"It's for your own good, Mike. One brush with Death out there on the road is one too many."_

But, even now, Mike wasn't so sure it was Death that had come calling a week ago.

In short, he... didn't know what that had been about.

With each passing night, the teen's recollection became hazier, more muddled by time's eraser. He remembered biking back from town, that it had happened well after night had fallen. He remembered locking the butcher's shop back door, patting his jacket to remind himself the flashlight was where he stashed it. From there, he wheeled his bike out to the street and took off with no problems whatsoever.

After that came the spill.

What had caused it?

A pothole? A stick? A rock?

Mike still hadn't figured that out.

He remembered getting up, eyes straining in the dark. He remembered feeling the sting of grazed skin on his palms and elbows. He remembered how the wind, marginally less cold now that he found himself at a stop, had seemed to cease.

On the shoulder of the road was his bike, lying there on its side, front wheel canted up at a strange, bewildered-looking angle. The handlebars were pointed down, tire pointed up. The pose lent it a queer kind of expression:

 _"What just hit us?"_

Blinking, gasping, Mike wasn't so sure 'they' had been 'hit' by anything.

Not at first.

Then he heard it.

First from one direction, from behind.

Next, it was right beside him.

Then behind him again.

Before jumping to his opposite side.

A strange, rapid, slithery-sounding clicking, like spent shell casings rattling against concrete.

How could that be?

This was a dirt road. Nothing like concrete or asphalt for anything to rasp against.

Then, with how fast the sound seemed to change direction - impossible. His ear could barely keep up, detecting where it came from, let alone could his eyes hope to track it. Mike tried, fumbling about, eventually finding his flashlight some ten feet away from the bike. He tried to sweep aside the dark and get a good look.

Something solid and strong cuffed him upside the head before he could.

It wasn't a knockout, but it was enough of a hit to make him wonder at his memories later.

He remembered lying there, cringing, hands held to shield his face.

The sound, it was right _above_ him.

Tormenting him? Mocking him?

...Checking on him?

What did it want?

White things, hovering in and out of sight, drifting to and fro over him like specks of ash.

He thought he smelled something odd - cool, cooler than the autumn air around them. Like when you took a sip of water after brushing your teeth. Cooler than cold.

Minty, almost.

After a time, nothing more seemed to happen.

The whatever-it-was seemed to give itself pause.

Mike regained his senses around the same moment. Acting only on adrenaline and panic, his brain saw fit to let his nervous body take things from there. It rolled itself aside, grabbed his fallen bike, and lit outta there.

He slept hard, then woke the next day with no small shortage of new doubts.

That... was...

How much of that was real? How much was just a byproduct of his dazed imagination?

Leroy Hanlon hadn't cared.

Well, he did, just not about _that_.

The next day, over breakfast, he had noticed Mike's shredded arms and bruised head.

Then, at dinner, he proclaimed his intent to sign his grandson up for public classes. With a week's grace period to wrap up his latest round of homeschool assignments, things wouldn't remain the same for long.

Mike balked, but that was all he could do. He poured through his textbooks one last time, already feeling a bit nostalgic for the way his life had been. His and Leroy's understanding was about to turn a corner. Yes, their relationship was strained and harsh, downright difficult at times, but they were all the family either of them had.

Pops was only looking out for him, right?

He supposed he might even actually miss the freedom of being homeschooled.

And the worst of it was, where he was going today, there would be no one to simply _talk_ to about it.

Not that Mike Hanlon was a regular chatterbox or anything. On the farm, he had simply kept his head down, did as he was told. The hired-on farmhands were all older, gruffer, and not really known for their in-depth conversations.

In town, it wasn't much better. Most of the quickening friendships the almost-orphaned boy had once enjoyed with his peers had gone up in smoke not long after his parents' house had.

Five years was more than enough time to become a little introverted.

Introverted, but not without sense.

* * *

Bells went off in the hallways, and the floodgates of Derry High opened.

The afternoon rush was on.

Backpack readied, Mike hung back, waiting until the majority of the class had been filtered out before following in their wake. He looked around the myriad of faces, tried to remember their names here and there, tried half-heartedly to commit them to short-term memory.

In their collective hurry to depart, his classmates didn't give him a lot of time to do so.

None of them glanced his way.

For apparently, 'homeschooled' was synonymous with stigma.

Never mind the ever-there minority factor.

But, thankfully, his last instructor for the day - Mr. Karlsen - didn't appear to subscribe to either stereotype.

Seated at his desk, the study hall teacher belatedly looked up from his papers once silence had almost-fallen, and spied the one figure left over in his classroom.

"Michael. Something wrong?"

Mike almost jumped, lost in his musings as he had been. He blinked rapidly, making his way back to the present.

"N-no, no, sir. Nothing's wrong."

 _Nothing... nothing I can_ know _is wrong, anyway._

Mr. Karlsen raised a bushy eyebrow, green eyes gentling behind his spectacles. He had seemed decent enough, an average-built, kind-faced man whom none of the other students appeared to outwardly resent. The kind of character who did not rock the boat unless it was called for.

So, question answered, he did not prod.

"Well, if you're sure..."

He let his response hang there, turning his attention back to the papers.

Swallowing nervously, Mike took a few hesitant steps forward. He glanced at the door, then back to the desk.

He wasn't - sure, that was.

Hurry home?

Or try making a little in-road here?

He wasn't out to become any teacher's pet, but forging a little rapport never hurt anyone.

"Actually, sir- "

Pencil still pressed down, Mr. Karlsen looked up again, tilting his head.

Mike swallowed again, wiping a sweaty palm on the hem of his jacket. "I wondered if- if you knew- Are there any afterschool study programs I might sign up for?"

The man's expression leaned the other way, as if this lingering student were now some rare creature to behold. "Really, going for the extra credits, already?"

"The school doesn't have any?"

He smiled. "I didn't say that. Derry High doesn't, but the town library has its own retinue you might find... agreeable?"

 _You use big words like that with all the kids, mister?_

 _Or are you just testing me?_

Mike nodded instead. He had some cause to think those things, but not act on them.

The teacher was only trying to be of help, in his own way. Like Leroy.

"I'll look into that, sir. Thank you."

Mr. Karlsen nodded right back, matter settled. "You're welcome, Mike. Have a safe ride home."

Heading outside, Hanlon paused only to retrieve his books from his locker. Navigating the semi-crowded hallway proved easier than he anticipated, too.

Maybe dodging other students was akin to bike riding. You never lost those reflexes.

Outside, he brushed a fine coat of snow off his bike lock, then worked the tumblers to enter the three-digit combination. Wrenching it out of the rack, he decided against riding it. The library was only a few blocks on, and he would rather not take another spill in the near future.

He didn't need to hobble around on crutches for the rest of the winter.

While the dirt road may have been perilous at night, the streets of inner Derry were their own kind of dangerous, no matter the time of day.

Black ice.

Mike had read about it once. That the ice didn't actually turn colors, but on dry roads, when it froze thin and completely clear, that was when it was at its most risky. He had already seen a few students go down in their haste to get home, when it didn't look like ice had been beneath their feet at all.

The sidewalks were clear for the moment. Walking along with his bike in the place of a cane or ski-pole, that was the way to go.

The library. That was a destination given alternative to someone like Mike. In the wintertime, most students would forgo doing homework there, more it in favor of television or spending time with friends before dinner.

There was no TV back on the farm, and as yet, Mike had no friends.

Not for lack of trying, but in Derry, you had to pick them carefully.

Take nothing at face value.

Like the jocks. All their money and fine features didn't do anything to compensate for the ugliness of their personalities.

Or the greasers. Excess attitude and troublemaking tendencies didn't make you as charming as the next Travolta.

The geeks were even their own kind of estranged. For in their world of numbers and reference-checked facts, if you didn't measure up, they could freeze anyone out with as much aplomb as any jock or greaser.

That left... who?

Mike turned a stopsign-adorned corner, sighing as he came to the conclusion.

Only one alternative remained.

The losers.

The social outcasts, for whom none of the above categories were a perfect fit. The misfits with too much or too little of any given trait to be considered worthy of anyone's time.

The loners for whom there was no hope.

A homeschooled kid, tossed back into the fray because of some freak accident that he couldn't rationalize.

He supposed he cut the mustard there.

The snow had started falling again by the time he locked up his bike and climbed the library steps. He made sure to kick the slush off his boots, not trek it all over the carpet. Inside, the assistant at the door spared him a nod, which Mike returned. The hushed atmosphere inside didn't allow for much more.

(Funny how those signs proclaiming quiet were always written in such big, bold, _loud_ letters.)

But it was still warmer in here than it had been outside, much more than the reception he had received in any of his classes that day.

Or... in his own luggage for that matter.

Mike didn't think anything was amiss as he picked a study room. No one but the filled bookcases watched as he shrugged off his coat. His backpack seemed in order as he opened it to retrieve his books.

His mood only bottomed out at reading the crude message inside one.

There it was, scrawled on the inside cover not in ink, but with the sharp point of a blade.

The carving spoke volumes more than the book itself did on the basic injustices of inequality.

From it, Mike knew exactly who had him in their crosshairs. Who already knew the combination of his school locker, if not more.

Someone he thought he had outgrown as much as his once-friendships.

He had thought, hoped as much.

Fate didn't care about your hopes.

 _ **Welcome Back, Loser.**_

And with a wide, dark swath, painted with a florish, underneath - in what had to be dried blood (or _worse_ ) - Mike figured out his place right quick.

Sighing again, he shoved history aside in favor of science.

* * *

Ben Hanscom had been dethroned.

And, at first, he couldn't be happier for it.

Technically, as a Derry native, Mike Hanlon couldn't exactly be called "the new kid". By what limited information Ben had, this was more of a comeback tour for the former farmboy than it was a debut. He had spent his elementary years in public school, but missed out on the crucial intermediate period following a family tragedy.

The rest of their 'peers', they didn't care.

Far as they were concerned, Mike was the new whipping boy.

Ben cared.

While he knew it was rather inevitable, that some other kid would have taken his unwanted title no matter what, he had already resolved to make the process a little less painless. Whether anything came of it or not, it would be worth a try. Already, he and Mike had their greenhorn status in common.

He didn't expect anything in return.

Pay it forward.

The world would be a semi-better place for it, if only that chain reaction were to catch on.

But it had to start somewhere.

Ben knew he was on the right track almost immediately, parking his bike outside the library. Waiting for him there was one big clue he was on the right track.

Mike's was the only bicycle with such a large, distinct basket atop the handlebars - now a remnant of his days playing butcher shop errand boy.

Ben ducked his head against the wind, reached up to pull the front door open. He hadn't sought Hanlon out deliberately (his homework was better done here than home, as well), but that they had the same destination in mind to accomplish said work, that was encouraging.

"New kid."

The wind died down momentarily.

Ben still felt an awful rush of chill as a familiar hand stretched over his extended shoulder, pushing the library door closed.

There was a warm body at his back, practically looming over him.

 _Where did he come from?_

Had he been asked, Henry Bowers would have declined to answer.

"Where y'think you're goin'?"

The opposite hand grabbed his shoulder, firm and rough, and spun the heavyset boy around.

Ben didn't have time, much less thought to answer. He almost stumbled on the slippery concrete landing. He couldn't help an involuntary gasp, looking up at Bowers' grinning face.

The bully was dressed for the elements, just as his target was. But even through the layers, he appeared lanky, lean.

Lean as he was mean.

Alone or in a group, it didn't matter his company.

Henry had the same cruel, naturally-intimidating features as Butch. Minus the wrinkles, basically. He could scare someone just as soon as look at them.

Gut them just as fast, when he was worked up to that point.

And some days, it didn't take much to get him there at all.

Wide-eyed, Ben took half a step back on impulse, backpack squashing against the glass. He quickly reconsidered his first kneejerk thought ("nowhere, Henry" "doesn't look like 'nowhere' to me, Porky"), mouth working once before squeaking out a smarter response.

"To do- "

He tried to, anyway.

A dirty black glove clapped itself over his lips.

Bowers leaned in close, brows low over his snide, green eyes. His breath turned cloudy in the frosty air, billowing out of his nose like an angry bull.

"I asked you a question."

Ben blinked, wincing against the cold, biting wind. His scarf had come loose.

"Home-homework, Henry. That's all."

The leering grin morphed into a twisted, predatory smirk. "'Homework' isn't a place, Hanscom. C'mon, you're not _that_ stupid."

And just as quickly as he grabbed hold, the sophomore let go.

Toying with his target.

Well, in such a public vantage point as this, he could only get away with it for so long.

Ben sniffed, coughed briefly. His palms were hot inside his mittens. "Sorry, I-I know. I was... on my way to see someone."

"Yeah?" Henry folded his arms, raised an eyebrow and shook his head. "If this someone's name starts with an M, I'd think twice if I were you. Again."

 _Why?_

 _You gonna stop me?_

Irrationally-brave thought, that.

Ben sniffed again. He didn't dare call Bowers out on it.

He liked keeping his insides, _inside_.

"What d'you mean?"

Henry stooped close, driving the younger boy back against the door.

Ben's involuntary cry was muffled against his glove. The doorframe gave a noticable _thud_ as it was hit.

And Bowers hissed at him like a snake about to strike: "I mean, keep your _distance_ from the farmboy, new kid. Just 'cause he's been tossed back in the pond with the rest of us, that doesn't mean I've taken my eyes off of you."

Ben could only cower against the glass, hands on his backpack's straps.

The better to keep them from visibly shaking.

"Yeah, that's right." His attacker glowered, jammed a index finger into Ben's chest. "I may have more beef with him than I do you, but don't even think for a second that teaming up is gonna make things any safer."

"Mr. _Bowers_."

Ben's saving grace came in the form of the desk-attending library assistant. Her name escaped him at the moment. Holding a shawl over her shoulders, the middle-aged woman eased the free door open, glaring them both down with suspicion.

It seemed that, no matter where he went in Derry, the bully's reputation preceded him.

Undoubtedly, he was not welcome on library property, by the way she was scowling like something foul had wafted by her nose.

"Is there a problem?"

Looking up, almost caught in the act, Henry put on his most contrite face.

He kept that in his emotive arsenal specifically for situations like this.

"No, ma'am." With all the ease of a practiced liar, he stood, using a hand to lift Ben back to his feet. "Ben slipped on the top step, fell against the door. He's okay, though."

The assistant glanced between them, eyes narrow behind her arch, bejeweled specs. Then, with little more than a sharp _hmph_ of contentment, she closed the door.

Ben watched through the sides of his eyes as she returned to her desk without a backwards look.

Unbelievable. How she didn't even wait long enough for him to confirm or refute that-

Henry's grip tightened on his elbow, growing vicelike, drew his prey's attention back.

"I'll only say it once again, Fatso: stay - away - from Hanlon."

Threat made, he straightened up.

"And that goes for the rest of the year. Make me repeat myself, and you'll both be regretting it."

He whipped around and stalked his way back down the concrete steps.

Breathing shakily, Ben watched and waited until Henry had vanished.

Knowing full well Belch was probably waiting just out of sight, car running.

Where, together, the gang would wait and see where he went.

Eventually, the fear melted away.

Then Ben curled his fingers, frowning. Righteous indignation set in.

 _We'll both regret it?_

 _As if we weren't anyway, stuck in this town with you like we are._

There was another thing he and Mike had in common.

Being forced into a corner you didn't want to be, all because your elders were so concerned for your wellfare.

In Mike's case, it was his grandfather, pulling strings to keep his family name alive. Somehow, someway.

In Ben's, it was his mother's need to remarry, to somehow make her son's home life more stable. It had just the opposite effect. She had saddled Ben with two unwanted step brothers who were just as vile as Bowers when they wanted to be.

Waiting for him at home like they were, at least he could close his bedroom door. It had a lock.

Ben lingered, uncertain, thinking of his earlier good intentions. He glanced back, through the door.

He didn't _see_ Hanlon in the main reading room.

No doubt the farmboy was hiding, taken one of the back study rooms as his temporary sanctuary.

But if Ben went in now, it would mean stepping back out to worse treatment than the one he had just endured.

He waited, thinking about it for all of ten minutes.

His nose went red in the cold, his eyes watery. His idle fingers grew numb.

Ben didn't care.

Rather, he did, but Fate was forcing his hand here.

He would have to make his introduction some other time.

Dejectedly, he strode back down the steps to retrieve his bike.

 _Sorry, Mike. Hang tough._

 _Bullies aren't forever._

 _Something will give._

 _It always does._


	14. Blame

**Notes:** It's official. This It has gone split persona on us.

Moreso than he already was.

* * *

 _"Funny, you're a loser, with only yourself to blame..."_

 _Sevendust - Seasons, "Enemy"_

* * *

The humans of Derry had something called "cable".

Shorthand for "TV".

...What was more shorthand than two letters?

Agh.

No. Don't get distracted.

You've let enough of that happen already.

Point is, watching them - for It - was on par with how they seemed to spend hours at home, zoned out in front of said appliances.

The comparison was enough to make him snort in amusement, then take a more proactive stance than lying about on a proverbial couch.

Derry had lots of channels to pick from, if you will.

In a way, each and every person was their own. From that, you could practically tell one network from the next.

The highflying daredevils. The skittish ones. The hopeless romantics. The foolishly brave.

It screened them, for minutes or hours at time, studying, relearning what he had forgotten about each.

Take Henry Bowers, for instance.

At first glance, It saw a lot of himself in said boy.

Not any immediate common ground, no.

It wasn't the son of a police officer.

It had no grudge-bearing, heavily-drinking father who beat him on a regular basis.

It had no gang of like-aged boys with their own family problems to run with.

It didn't-

No, wait.

It... It _did_ do that.

Prey.

Prey on the weak, the vulnerable.

Toy with them.

Threaten them.

Eventually act on those threats.

Henry did so out of habit.

For as long as he had been old enough to walk, to get away from Butch, he took his frustrations out on the world at large.

Most of the time, that meant on children younger than himself.

Not too much younger. Not like Georgie.

Just a few years or so.

More like Billy.

He would beat them. Taunt them. Cut them. Stalk them. Steal their money, deface their possessions.

And for the foreseeable future, Henry didn't appear to have any plans to change this.

Creature of habit.

How It used to be.

When he wasn't forced to relearn his very mannerisms.

He could learn a thing or two from Henry.

But then...

Georgie.

Damn fool, what _is_ your fixation with that kid?

Nothing.

It's just-

Just-

What?

That, for a second, you forwent relearning your own semi-forgotten nature and gave him a helping hand, out of the drain?

Why?

Just to see if you could?

Well, there!

Experiment over.

We can go back to the way things were.

But...

But, what?

...No.

Don't even go there.

Don't go soft.

You can't afford to.

But... I already kind of have.

Nooo, _no_ , you haven't.

Just because you dabbed once in a different color doesn't mean you need to go back and repaint the whole canvas.

The big picture.

You gotta look at the big picture.

Waste time worrying about the little details, things won't go back to how they were before.

Georgie Denbrough is a little detail.

He offered to help you, but you already made up your mind there. Said as much to him.

He doesn't know what you are, what you've been doing.

He doesn't _know_ anything that could help.

No matter what you tell yourself.

I... suppose...

Suppose, nothing.

That gap in your head?

Good. Keep it open.

Let it fill up with doubt, and you'll never figure out what used to be there before.

Forget Georgie.

Keep watching Bowers.

You saw what he did outside the library.

The kid he had cornered.

Like you cornered Hanlon.

The same smell the rat gave off, before you killed it?

Same thing, same thing emanated from Hanlon and Hanscom.

Didn't that feel... right to see?

How they cowered?

How they didn't know what to think?

How _anything_ could have happened?

Bowers got a thrill out of it.

Same kinda thrill you get after a kill.

Yes.

...Your pathetic, one-note kills.

But longer lasting.

More... satisfying.

You can do the same thing.

You can get your grip back.

Remember how it felt, to be on top?

Just gotta start thinking that way again.

No distractions.

But, Georgie-

 _What_ did I just say about no distractions?


	15. Lost

**Notes:** Last but not least, Bevs.

Sorry, wrong AU. Beverly, not Bevs.

* * *

 _"You're lost, tell me who, are you..."_

 _Siouxsie & The Banshees - Through The Looking Glass, "You're Lost Little Girl"_

* * *

Beverly Marsh hated the wintertime.

And, far from being excluded for thinking so, she was by no means the only person in Maine who felt that way.

Small compensation, all things considered.

Hating the wintertime didn't simply banish it from reality, however.

It still meant walking home after school.

Still meant facing the cold, the ice, the snow.

Dealing with the occasional heckler.

True, there weren't as many of them around after summer ended.

But between fending off the local would-be studs and the older-than-national-average creeps, there were still enough strangers around to be wary of.

And it was times like that that made Beverly almost wish she were as ugly as Gretta Keene declared on a daily basis.

Almost.

For if she were ugly, the male of the species would have cause to leave her _alone_.

* * *

Three blocks from home, Beverly found an alley to take refuge in. Running north-south as it did, that wasn't so much of a wind tunnel that she could enjoy a cigarette before legging it the rest of the way.

What was Daddy always saying about alleys and their tendency to attract trouble, though?

Face turned away from the relentless breeze, Beverly shrugged deeper into her jacket, took another pull on the cigarette, and scoffed on the exhale.

Trouble never found you that fast.

And if it did, the unforgiving elements meant both parties wouldn't be moving as quickly as normal. When there wasn't glare ice or ankle-deep snow to contend with.

This would only be for a minute or so.

The alley, as yet, didn't have much clutter. Two Dumpsters faced each other at the mouth, looking out onto Main Street like a sorry pair of guards. Beyond them, along each wall were no more than a few bags of refuse, and an unused freight pallet propped up against the far end.

Looking at it, Beverly supposed the sorry-excuse-variety blanket draped across its surface hadn't gotten there accidentally. Some poor soul was probably slumbering away underneath it.

If they had survived the previous night.

Then they were probably asleep for good.

Shaking off that grim thought, she stepped back, into the narrow space beside one of the Dumpsters.

That would keep the wind off her.

Finish this, then leg it the rest of the way.

Her assignments weren't going to write themselves.

Just as-

Beverly paused mid-thought, and mid-drag.

Bewildered, she took the cigarette from her lips, held it up before her blue eyes.

...Weird.

There was nothing outwardly different about it.

So...

Why did it suddenly taste like she was sucking bare air through a straw?

As if the paper had no tobacco inside?

When, according to what she saw, it clearly did?

She frowned, about to toss the thing aside, dismissing it as defective.

Then someone just _had_ to notice her plight.

"Hey, girl."

Beverly turned, felt a strand of red hair fall free to dangle in the chilly breeze.

Said someone leaned on the corner of the building, calm as you please.

To her inner horror, that someone just had to be the likes of Patrick Hockstetter.

Also known as Derry High's latest holder of the title "weirdo-in-chief".

Just because he sometimes- _oftentimes_ ran with Henry Bowers didn't mean the lanky teenager wasn't capable of striking out on his own.

At the moment, he seemed bundled up for it. With a heavy jacket and jeans, gloves, hat, and scarf, Hocksetter had dressed for the weather. He was clothed as if he had intended to walk the streets for some time, looking for likely company.

Or prey.

Depending on his mood.

The scariest thing about him, was one couldn't tell simply by looking at his expression, which adjective he was feeling more like using.

But then, therein lay the problem of judging someone too quick.

Beverly only knew him by reputation. And she, better than most, knew how those accounts were so prone to being warped and twisted so far from the truth, your rep may as well have been an entirely seperate person from you.

To judge someone by it was as unfair as it was simply lazy.

So, only in the sense of being decent, she spared him a nod in greeting.

"Patrick."

Hockstetter smirked against the edge of his scarf. "Whatcha doing back there, in the dark?"

 _In the middle of the day, what do you think?_

Beverly shrugged, snuffing out the already-extinguished cigarette, then stopped to put a glove over her bare hand.

There, matching set.

"Staying out of the wind."

He took a few steps closer, then slumped sideways, as if the chill of the wall were of no consequence to his shoulder.

"That all?"

Odd.

He _sounded_ casual enough.

"It's all I need. Temperature like this, you gotta take cover where you can, from time to time."

"I guess."

"What about you?" Beverly asked, not because she wondered, but because the gravid silence afterward would be simply unbearable. "Headed home?"

"The diner, actually," Hockstetter took his turn to shrug, with his free arm. "Wanna tag along?"

"Thanks, but I have schoolwork."

"Don't we all?" He hiked an eyebrow, unfazed. "Doesn't mean you can't put it off for a short while."

Oldest, most-unoriginal procrastination argument in the book.

"I do that, my Dad'll never let me hear the end of it," Beverly retorted. "Sorry, Patrick."

She had hardly taken one step back out onto the sidewalk before he spoke again. The open airspace of the alley lent his voice a weird echo.

"...Your cigarette went out?"

 _How did he...?_

Beverly paused, considered turning back.

Reaching a compromise, she only craned her head around.

Matching her bemused stare, Hockstetter was still smirking.

What happened next...

Later, Beverly could only have described it as a blur of activity. Like someone had overcranked a film to run at three times its normal speed. A series of fuzzy, out of focus moments, flashing by faster than her brain had time to process.

She thought she remembered hands, on her coat. Pulling hard.

Belatedly, she thought to fight, to dig her heels against the concrete, try to get away.

Other voices, fellow pedestrians.

Shouting?

A screech of car tires?

The sunlight above being blocked out, as a shadow fell over her and Patrick.

And the film wound down, back to normal, boring-reality speed, around the same time Alvin Marsh had Hockstetter pinned against the wall.

"Dad?!"

Predictably enough, Alvin wasn't listening.

Holding two fistfuls of jacket, he spared the boy only a brief snarl, tossing him back across the icy sidewalk.

"Get lost, you little _creep_."

Tail between his legs, the lanky teen almost slipped on his own boots.

Alvin's raised voice chased him down the street.

"And don't you _dare_ come sniffin' around her again!"

Beverly could only stare in amazement.

 _Dad?_

 _Where did- this is on the way home, but how did he time it so-_

In another moment of incredibly-lucky timing, a blue-uniformed figure stepped out from one of the storefronts, donning their hat in the process.

"Sir? Is there something wrong?"

Beverly gave a little muted gasp at being pulled under her father's denim-jacketed arm, but his attention went to the trooper first.

"No, Officer. We're fine."

 _'Fine'?_

 _One second, Hockstetter's asking about my cigarette I know he didn't see._

 _The next, you're here, playing hero._

 _How?_

 _It makes no-_

* * *

"Sense?"

Up until that point, Eddie Kaspbrak had tuned his mother out.

He wasn't the paper-reading sort of guy.

The news was always bad. That's why it made the cut and could be called news.

But if he had learned anything after so many hours of his life spent in waiting rooms, it was that you had to make due with whatever amusements there were.

Right now, at the walk-in clinic, the real source of entertainment was apparently his mother, Sonia.

While everyone else stared, watching her haggle with the on-duty nurse at the reception desk, Eddie kept his eyes glued to the latest issue of the Derry Herald.

He slouched down in the plastic chair, legs crossed, and tried his damnedest to appear relaxed.

He had no cause to be upset. It was his own slip of the tongue that had landed him here.

Just because he mentioned feeling a little faint after lunch-

And his social studies teacher, Mrs. Sandrei, had happened to overhear-

And because Sonia had given the school explicit instructions to notify her of any and all concerns regarding his health-

And all of his teachers were therefore privy to said mandate-

 _Two days bedrest, minimum._

Eddie could already imagine looking his attending psychician in the eye and figuring out their recommended treatment in one glance.

Food poisoning.

That only _he_ had had the misfortune of suffering.

 _"Hey, gift horse, Eds. Means you won't have to dissect a frog like Mr. Wright was telling us about."_

Instantly, he had gone from feeling slightly lightheaded to mostly-nauseous.

Thanks, Richie.

There was an empty chair to either side of him.

For the moment, Eddie's only immediate company was the mostly-bare coffee table and its cheap plastic fern. The other waiting room guests had given him a wide berth.

Not at first.

But as Sonia's rant gained steam, they seemed to drift away.

Eddie scoffed quietly, turning back to the front page.

He glanced over the leading headline again.

 _BOSTON TOURIST ELI FANNING  
\- TWO WEEKS MISSING -  
SEARCH SUSPENDED, REWARD REDACTED_

Eddie rolled his eyes.

Not at the story.

So someone else had gone up in smoke. In Derry, there always seemed to be notice of a new missing persons case published every so often.

But the title's vernacular, that was just iffy.

Silly editors.

What were the odds most of their readers knew what 'redacted' meant?

Unless they were _Jeopardy!_ fans-

"Wait there."

Eddie flinched and glanced up, almost dropped the newspaper in his surprise.

Not at the gruff-sounding voice, but the _thump_ and squeak of chair legs on the floor.

Someone had taken a seat beside him, snow just beginning to melt off her boots.

She wasn't looking at him.

With transfixed eyes, she watched as the man she was with stalked across the room to join Sonia at the desk. His expression was grim, intense.

All the better to match Mrs. Kaspbrak in her outrageousness.

He brought sheer seriousness to the table.

Eddie stared after him a moment before glancing back. He blinked a few times, took a more thoughtful look at his new company.

 _Beverly. That's her name, right?_

They were in the same grade.

...And that was about as much as Kaspbrak knew for sure.

Everything else was courtesy of the town rumor mill.

He would sooner believe something written about her if it showed up in an issue of the Herald, rather than the word out of anyone else's mouth. Eddie was one for the facts.

Sure, sometimes he overindulged in taking so many statistics to heart. To reading every last ingredient on a nutrition label. To scanning the fine-print warrantys for appliances at home, detailing what to do in the event of mechanical failure.

At the moment, though, Beverly Marsh wasn't offering anything.

Wordlessly, she reached up to pull her snowflake-flecked knit cap off. She winced as it lifted away, revealing a mussed mane of bronzed-scarlet hair. In need of a hairbrush after being tucked in, out of the weather.

She didn't reach for her discarded backpack, where a brush was most likely stowed.

Instead, she caught Eddie's eye.

Smiled a quirky little half smile.

Like, _"Hey, fancy meeting you here."_

Like, somehow, he was the first real thing she had seen all day.

Belatedly, he blinked and smiled back.

"Hi."

"Hi."


	16. Jealous

**Notes:** We've gone from the balcony seats to the peanut gallery, haven't we, It?

* * *

 _"I'm not feelin' jealous, don't like lookin' like a clown..."_

 _Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - Up Your Alley, "I Hate Myself For Loving You"_

* * *

Apex.

That was the word, you heard it before.

What it meant, to be at the height of something.

Where no one could knock you down.

Except perhaps your own idiocy.

Goodness knew It had shown plenty of that lately.

No, not 'goodness'.

...What... ever-ness.

Sigh.

You know, human language is as petty and limited as it can be creative.

How?

Oxy- oww...

No. Nooo. That may be enough learning new words for one day.

Ben Hanscom may have very well been a equivical-dictionary in his past existence.

His warehouse-of-knowledge mindscape certainly suggested it.

Somehow, someway.

The universe's matter didn't always crumble to nothing the first time.

Sometimes, it simply became repurposed.

And mortals were the best kind of clay for said remolding.

But, before-

That word-

Apex was what it was to be without superior.

But... maybe not without peer.

Peer.

Don't kid yourself, dummy.

You're not supposed to have equals.

There's _you_ , and then there's prey.

Split the difference.

...Split?

Divide, draw lines, set boundaries.

You were once familiar with the concept.

That's how you kept your grip.

Keeping the poor folks poor?

The rich, they only get richer?

Classes.

There wasn't as much overlap before.

Not like there is now.

And balance, where it was once level?

Things are starting to tip.

Too far to once side.

Like a seesaw.

That used to lean the other way.

For some people.

Like that girl in the alley, her situation?

Before, you know - Daddy wouldn't have left work.

He would have stayed, taken another shift.

Another few hours on the paycheck, to afford that case of beer.

When his wages were already enough to cover the bills.

Barely.

But just enough.

He typically stayed on call, for two or three days at a time.

To have something cold to drink, to enjoy, while he watched the game.

Beverly.

Problems with schoolwork.

With other girls.

Psh.

What did she matter?

No, instead...

Alvin went home at the end of his shift.

Because, for once, he thought being there, before dark, would make for a nice surprise for Bevvie?

When before, he wouldn't have even needed a reason to be headed that way at that time.

Or that bully.

That scrappy-demented-jackal of a boy.

What did he think he was doing?

Typically, he ran with those other three.

Easier to grab somebody when they worked as a pack.

A pack of jackals.

Getting their sick jollies out of whatever young teen or child they could get their paws on.

You can see the appeal, of having... help, at your disposal, but...

No.

Peers.

You didn't need peers.

You still don't.

You hadn't before.

There was nobody before.

But there was... no reason to need anybody before, either.

Now It had a reason.

Your own reasons, yes.

But they had always been my reasons.

No one else's.

But... that- it- It could only be that way, couldn't it?

Yeah, we went over this.

Your reasons are not all that different, in that they were no more your own than anyone else has _their_ own reasons for being the way _they_ are.

Like...

Like . . .

Sigh.

Well, I _guess_ this is apropos.

Like Georgie.

The kid had his reasons, too.

For chasing the boat down the street?

He wanted to have fun.

For taking a diving leap after it?

...No. Remember.

Her?

Fine.

 _Her._

The _S.S. Georgie_.

His namesake.

Just christened, Georgie was already fond of her.

He didn't want to lose her.

Didn't want to disappoint Billy.

And after I- It rescued him...

Georgie wanted to return the favor. Somehow.

Even if he didn't... he didn't know.

Didn't _know_ the first thing about It.

Scratch that.

He knew It as Pennywise.

Besides grateful, that he hadn't perished where he had thought he would, Georgie was curious.

He wanted to help.

That's just how the boy was.

Is.

A distraction, yes...

...But a distraction I- you- _we_ once thought he would have a use for.

Use.

Yes...

He still would. Still did.

Just not the... _first_ use we had thought of.

Riiight.

...No. What?


	17. Shadow

**Notes:** Impasse - reached.

* * *

 _"I'm a call without an answer, I'm a shadow in the dark..."_

 _Mike Shinoda - Post Traumatic, "Nothing Makes Sense Anymore"_

* * *

A ghost.

Georgie thought on Bill's comparison for a long time after that impromptu sleepover at the Tozier house. And the more he thought about it, the more it made sense.

More sense than any alternative comparison he had, anyway.

Musing, the six-year-old boy pulled on his green tee-shirt and black pyjama pants without issue. The only time he seemed to find opportune to think on it was when he found himself alone.

What he had seen, what had helped him, that was a ghost?

If ghosts weren't real, then...

No, they had to be.

Pennywise was real enough. Even if he didn't fit the textbook defintion of one, he could pull the same kinds of feats as ghosts did.

Phase through walls. Fit into places physical things could not go. Change his appearance.

Be heard without being seen.

Well... technically, _anyone_ could do that last one. If you weren't facing them, of course they would be unseen.

Pulling his socks on, Georgie giggled softly at his momentary wittiness. Then resumed toweling his short brown hair off. It was almost done as an afterthought, before he had realized how sopping wet the locks still were. Mom wouldn't be happy if he sat down at the table after dripping a trail down the stairs and across to the kitchen floor.

Given the inherent privacy of the bathroom, this was as good a place as any to ponder. And to laugh at yourself for random lapses of said thought without anyone asking what's so funny.

Bill had taken the first shower, then closed the door to his bedroom, while Mom and Dad were downstairs. Probably setting the table for dinner, planning their next-year trip to Acadia, respectively. Snowed in as they all were, no one would be venturing outside this Thursday night, not at this later afternoon hour. They kept busy where they could elsewhere.

No chance of an interruption for Georgie, unless someone heard the call of nature.

All in all, it was proving to be another ordinary early evening at the Denbrough household.

With the towel over his head, Georgie squeezed at his hair, ruffled it one final time. There. It seemed dry enough. Facing the countertop sink, he lifted the handtowel from his eyes, intent on checking his progress in the mirror.

There, waiting in its reflection, he was starkly reminded.

Ordinary had _long_ since left his life.

* * *

"Ahh!"

Georgie had cracked the door open, so the room wouldn't get so foggy and hot during bathtime. Seeing what awaited him in the mirror above the sink, he almost thought to lunge for the doorknob, to escape.

Then, past that initial fight-or-flight scare, he gasped and dropped the towel.

In surprise? In delight?

A bit of both, in all honesty.

"Penny!"

The mirror was no longer a mirror.

Or, rather, it was. There was still a reflection of the room as itself in the rectangular pane, with the bathtub, the wall beyond it. Set in a decorative recess above the tub was a varied collection of shampoos and soaps.

Resting on his elbows, Pennywise leaned against the mirror's bottom frame as if it were a drive-thru window.

As if he were standing in an entirely-different room.

What a neat trick.

The scarlet-trimmed smile that creased his pale face certainly made it seem clever.

"Long time, no sEe, GeorgIe."

The boy stammered soundlessly for a few seconds, caught percariously between deciding on excitement versus bewilderment, before bounding over to the open door. He paused only to lean outside, to check the hallway.

Finding it empty, he quietly closed the door and bounded back.

"Penny, hi!"

Frowning, the clown put a finger to his red lips. "Shhh!" With a gloved thumb, he gestured to his right, Georgie's left, and stage-whispered, "Billy's room is jusT over there."

The grade schooler nodded earnestly and leaned closer, voice adjusted to an almost-whisper:

"Yeah. But it's okay, though. We talked, about you."

"...I knoW."

Georgie tilted his head, reaching up to grasp the counter's edge. "You do? How?"

"I just- " Pennywise stopped mid-sentence, as if he were rethinking such a curt, unclarifying answer. Reluctantly, he explained, "I... overheard."

"The other night, at Richie's, you mean?"

The clown raised a striped eyebrow. "Is that where you weRe?"

" _How_ did you hear us?"

The entity started to frown.

He had seen this routine before, at the storm drain.

The torrent of questions were beginning to flow.

After a moment's pause, Georgie shook his head.

"Never mind. Sorry."

Pennywise tilted his head to one side, left eye straying the opposite way. The frown eased.

"What abouT?"

Cheeks flushing, Georgie peeked up through the tops of his eyes.

"I should know better. You don't like questions."

The visitor glanced away, drummed his fingers on his side of the mirror's edge for a moment, considering.

Then his eyes centered and narrowed, pupils flexing from round to slit-shaped and back. Through his teeth, he sucked in a tight breath.

"I don'T... _mind_ them, GeorgIe. Just- not so maNy at once."

"Okay." Nodding, compromise reached, the boy folded his bare arms to lean on the counter.

That was fair. Maybe, among the other things the ghostlike entity didn't know, about himself or anyone else, he had to be shown what it was to converse? Properly?

"I know. You ask me one, then I ask you. We'll go back and forth?"

That seemed agreeable enough.

Until Pennywise almost-glared at him.

The humid air still lingering in the bathroom suddenly felt almost pricky, crackling as it was charged with static. Georgie almost stepped away.

"This isn't a good place, kidDo. Isn't dinner starting soon?"

"Hey, there's one."

"One, wHat?"

The youngest Denbrough smiled, trying to make it look encouraging. "Question. You asked one."

Those odd eyes blinked shut, and Pennywise shook his head. His collar made a little tinging sound as he did.

"Still isn'T a good time or place, GeorgIe."

"Then why- but you're _here_ , now."

"I'm not _theRe_. I'm just... using the mirror to talk. Like the booK at school."

"Penny, I want to help," Denbrough blurted out. He could only take so much dancing around, and it felt wrong to demand this of anyone. Their time and place dictated it be done, though. "But you have to start making sense."

"...SenSe?"

The clown's expression sagged, as did the ruffles of his costume.

 _Wasn't I making sense before?_

Georgie read the question, posed non-verbally as it was.

He faltered in trying to give an answer.

"I'm sorry, but- between talking to Billy- and- it'd be easier if you just- "

The entity's image didn't move.

He didn't sigh.

Breathe in or sniffle like he was about to start crying.

He just stared down at the boy, brows lowered. It looked like the very picture of sad. No matter how smooth and neutral his voice went, there was definitely an underlying note of sorrow.

"Things haven't... been easy lately."

 _For you?_

 _For me?_

 _Because of you?_

 _Because of me?_

Whatever that had meant, the despondant words - the kid's heartstrings were effectively pulled by it. Mind made up, Georgie frowned, then put his hands on the counter again and leaned closer, practically over the sink.

Until only a few inches of air were between his nose and the mirror.

"Penny, I can't help you if you don't let me _ask_ you about things."

It was vaguely trippy, bordering on bizarre, to be so close, and yet know there was no reaching _through_ the mirror like it were an open window. Weirder still was the entity's mimickry of his pose.

The image opposite his own leaned on the counter in much the same way.

It stared back just as intently.

Georgie was close enough he could see the cracks in the facepaint, the frizzy strands of orange hair.

Topped by the sheer uncertainty in those blue eyes.

"Just... stop running away."

Fate let them have a moment's peace. Just one.

Then history saw fit to repeat herself.

The bathroom doorknob turned. In the almost-quiet of their surroundings, it sounded like the tortured wrench of a rusting hinge.

"G-Georgie, c'mon, it's t-time for- "

Looking in on the scene, Bill stopped cold, mouth closing with a audible snap.

Instantly, his brow furrowed, a matching scowl morphing into view.

" _You_."

Pennywise frowned, but glanced away in the opposite direction.

Nothing more.

Georgie glanced back. "Billy, please." Without leaning away, he instantly went into negotiation mode. No overdramatics, no stunned silence. They were past that part. "We're just talking."

With a cursory glance over his own shoulder, and finding no parents in sight, the older boy stepped inside, half-closing the door behind him. With explosive anger not an option, he seethed, "Talking _alone_ , again?"

Georgie frowned.

 _Why?_

 _It's easier to talk to him than it has been to_ _ **you**_ _lately._

Pennywise's blue eyes merely swiveled back toward them, blasé.

The irises seemed to shimmer, then take on a faint, green veil.

"Would an apology helP?"

"I'd- a-an- " Bill stammered to a stop. Stepping closer, he braced his hands on the counter beside the sink, shoulders hunching, pausing to take the the odd illusion in in full.

It was more of a thoughtful look than he had taken the first time.

"Y-you- I don't- "

In another repeat of their first encounter, Georgie tugged on his sleeve.

"Should I introduce you again?"

With a strange unanimousness, both brother and entity sighed his name and glanced his way:

"Georgie..."

Said boy's expression went edgy and determined. He seemed willing and ready to take on the role of peacemaker, no matter the consequences. If only they'd just let him.

"We're not gonna get anywhere if you two keep acting so silly."

"Th-there's n-nowhere to get, Georgie. This- this whatever it is- ow, quit it."

Bill stepped back, not because the punch in the elbow hurt, but that already, they had reached that level of tension again.

His little brother huffed and crossed his arms.

"He's not a 'whatever'."

Pennywise arched an eyebrow at the display, suddenly looking like the definition of blandly-unimpressed. Clearly, the creature hadn't been about ready to jump to his own defense there.

"GeoRgie... You'Ve been- hitting BilLy over thiS?"

"He doesn't know what you did, Penny. He says he understands, that you saved me, but he doesn't think you're real."

The apparition stared him down, a repeat of the nearly-frozen move he seemed to favor so much, then - rather than get angry - he merely chuffed and shook his head.

It was a spot-on, if deeper, imitation of the same sound Georgie had just uttered.

"Hmph. And you think _hitTing_ him is going to change his minD?"

"It hasn't," Bill interjected, clearly fed up with being talked over as he was. "And- I was g-going to say, whatever this is all about, you can l-leave Georgie out of it."

"What if I don't want to be left out?" the six-year-old fired back, growing more defiant with every word. "Billy, Penny's a friend. You're supposed to help friends when they have problems."

Bill grit his teeth, sparing the mirror another glare.

As if the creature inside would lunge out at any moment.

Unprovoked.

And with every word spoken, they were somehow getting closer to said provokation.

"Y-you don't even know _how_ to help him."

" _Talking_ is a start, isn't it?" Georgie groused. "And not getting- interrupted every time you try to."

 _Speaking of interruptions..._

In a very timely fashion, Zach Denbrough's voice boomed from under their feet, loud enough to reach the second floor.

"Boys! Dinner!"

Caught betwixt realities, both of his sons exchanged a wide-eyed look.

Then, together, they glanced back at the mirror.

Georgie half-expected to have gone blank, returned to normal.

To see nothing but their own slack-jawed reflections.

That his friend had run away again.

Still leaning on his elbows, Pennywise was there.

He smirked.

Then he reached _through_ the mirror, waving his fingers forward in a casual shooing gesture.

"Go, then. Don'T let me keEp you."

At the gesture, Bill snapped out of his trance long enough to call back down the stairs.

"Just a second, Dad!"

Taking his chance, Georgie jumped up on the counter's edge one last time, balancing on his hands.

He leaned over the sink again.

"After dinner? Or-or later? We'll talk later?"

Pennywise stared up through the tops of his askew eyes.

Meek and at the boy's mercy.

His frilly arm still hung over the sink.

"If you're suRe..."

"I'm sure, Penny. Please?"

His only answer was a sinister, upward twisting of those red lips, revealing sharp teeth.

Followed immediately by a gentle finger-flick against his nose.

"29 NeibolT Str _ee_ t, then. The door's alwayS open."

Georgie felt himself freeze at the touch.

He didn't know whether to feel charmed or... alarmed.

And he wasn't given any more time to puzzle over it.

"Okay, that's _enough_."

Someone grabbed his wrist.

"George, come on!"

Yanked bodily away from the sink, Georgie yelped as he was unceremoniously pulled from the room.

Bill slammed the door as they left.

Their mother's voice hollered up at them seconds later, demanding to know what was wrong. Georgie barely heard her. Breathing hard, he thought he heard the beginnings of high-pitched cackling going off before the latch thumped shut.

Unseen as the clown now was...

You might have thought it was a ghost gone mad laughing after them.


End file.
